P.S. These stories are people’s realities
I enjoy watching movies on women’s health issues
Apparently, they don’t get the PR they deserve
What’s even more striking is that they are more common than we think.
PPD, VVF, PID, Vaginismus…name them, you won’t get to hear it until you see it. And if you aren’t in healthcare, you may never see or hear about it.
So when one woman mentions it, it becomes a case of “She is not woman enough” or “Is that not what other women go through without complaining?”
Vesico-vaginal Fistula (VVF)
When I was much younger, I watched this Northern Nigerian movie (Title: I can’t remember) on VVF (Vesico Vaginal Fistula). It was about this 8 or 9-year-old girl who was given up in marriage to a certain Alhaji. This girl (let’s call her Nadia) was the fourth or fifth wife of the man. She struggled, I mean, what 8 or 9-year-old wouldn’t? Sex was painful; she cried on most nights. Heartbreaking was the older wives scolding her for not being strong enough to endure what “they” went through…I’m not quite sure, but I think one of the women wanted her turn of the night (More turns meant more love, which meant more favours).
Nadia started leaking urine and began smelling. Alhaji stopped coming to her tent, and the older wives maltreated her and refused to give her food. She bathed, but that wouldn’t wash away the stench. The ill treatment was so bad she had to go home…I mean, there’s always love at home, right? Wrong. Her mother fed her, she would have kept her daughter if she could but her father sent her back home. Bride price to him meant his daughter was now another man’s property…even if she was on death row.
A girl child of 8 or 9 years old, leaking and smelling, would certainly create a lot of social distance. She didn’t have friends, and she no longer had a home. Alhaji wouldn’t have his compound filled with a stench from a young wife he could easily replace, and her father wouldn’t keep another man’s wife under his roof.
She started sleeping on the streets and in the marketplace, and no one (I think a friend or her mother would bring her food on some days…not quite sure) showed concern. Do you mean in a community where girl child marriage was allowed and the norm, no one else was facing similar issues as she was? That can’t be possible.
I can’t remember how the story ended, whether she got help or she died, but I know at some point, a lady from an NGO saw how she was ostracised and offered to help. NGOs can only do so little compared to what community can.
Bayi on Diane Russet TV is somewhat similar. It’s also about VVF, but the girl here is older.
Research: “44% of girls in Nigeria are married before their 18th birthday…Child marriage kills more than 60 girls worldwide a day,” – Save the Child Initiative. “At least 3 million women experience untreated Vesico‑vaginal fistula (VVF) in Low and Middle Income Countries, and 30,000 to 130,000 new cases develop each year in Africa alone – Chinthakanan, et al. (2023).
Post Partum Depression (PPD)
Straw (the 2025 movie)…by Tyler Perry obviously got the highlights. But the reviews…I just can’t. Some say the main character (Taraji P. Henson) didn’t suffer so much to warrant her actions, or the others that focused on the Director’s storyline of antagonising black women, and so much more. And again, the issue of “what did she go through that some women haven’t experienced” comes up.
I watched the movie, and the only thing I could think of was — this is literally some people’s realities. Do you know how bad depression has to be that it goes beyond mood swings and an apathetic attitude to life to creating a non-existent person that is deeply rooted in your everyday life. Bathing, feeding, clothing, school runs, and housing a child that doesn’t exist? And she didn’t know it was all in her head.
Some years back, I watched a film on Post Partum Depression (PPD) – For Maria Ebun Pataki. In this one, the mother hated her baby…the kind of resentment that makes one neglect and have motives to kill her baby. “She should speak up” or “She should have spoken up”…and get labeled a witch? Because what do you mean, you feel that way towards an innocent creature…the “Gift God gave you?” A gift some women are bawling their eyes out over?
It’s always the pointing fingers. Do you think if she were OK, she wouldn’t want to kiss and snuggle her baby like she had probably imagined while she was pregnant? Do you know that from statistics, 15% of women, or 1 in 7 women, experience Post Partum Depression, while 3 out of 4 women experience baby blues (sadness, anxiety, bouts of crying in the mother; a few days after giving birth).
Out in the Darkness and Baby Blues are two more recent movies on PPD. I haven’t watched them, but I know the discrimination and misunderstanding of these mothers will be there.
Vaginismus
Yesterday, I saw another film (My Body, God’s Temple) on Vaginismus, on YouTube by Uzoamaka Power. That was what prompted this post, so I won’t be giving spoilers (it was released a few days ago).
The first time I heard about Vaginismus (outside classes and clinic) was from Titioluwa Sam-Oladapo (Tito the writer)’s personal experience, shared on Aproko Doctor TV on YouTube.
I really hope to see movies on women’s health getting more screen time. Be it short stories, documentaries, or even series. I can’t promise not to be disappointed by the reviews when they come in. But then again, some are ignorant, some uninformed, and others chauvinistic.
These movies were not made to garner sympathy or make you cry over fictional characters…they are there to highlight real-life issues and show the importance of community and awareness. So we can only do the least we can…talk about it.