The Digital Journalist
© MARY F. CALVERT / THE WASHINGTON TIMES
TRAIL OF TEARS: Netsanet Feleke, 15, stands in a mud house in her village of Bure, Ethiopia. She has been leaking urine, and with no medical care available nearby, she must travel a few hours to The Bahar Dar Fistula Hospital in Bahar Dar, Ethiopia, one of the few refuges for women like Netsanet. Fistula is a debilitating condition in which women injured in childbirth uncontrollably leak a trail of urine or feces. While a delivery by caesarian section prevents obstetric fistula, in sub-Saharan Africa such medical procedures and prenatal care rarely exist. As many as three million women, many in Ethiopia, suffer the devastating effects of this injury, while being shunned by the patriarchal society of their clans and villages.