UNFPA, CRSG To Deliver Free Fistula Surgery

The United Nations
Population Fund (UNFPA) says it will work in conjunction with the Cross River State Government to deliver free fistula repair surgery at the General Hospital, Calabar.
The UNFPA Gender Advisor in Nigeria, Ifiat Serha, disclosed this in an interview with newsmen in Calabar recently.
Medical experts describe fistula as a hole between the vagina and rectum or bladder that is caused by prolonged obstructed labour.
According to her, the surgeries which will begin on June 26 at the facility would last till July 1 this year for fistula patients.
She said that the UN agency expects people living with all forms of fistula to take advantage of the free surgery.
She said that the agency had engaged the services of three medical specialists for the exercise.
Serha said that the UNFPA had not relented in “delivering a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe and every young person’s potential is fulfilled’’.
She urged the people and residents in the state to demand for the implementation of the Child Rights Law as well as the Law to Prohibit Girl-Child Marriages and Female Circumcision or Genital Mutilation.
Serha said that the Law to Prohibit Domestic Violence Against Women and Maltreatment Of Widows in the state was also one of the laws that people should be aware of and demand for  its implementation.
The child rights law seeks the protection of the child’s right against early marriage, tattoos, female genital mutilation, trafficking, labour, prostitution, unlawful sexual intercourse, abuse and other forms of exploitation.