Vaginal politics – the latest data from DR Congo

As my colleagues and I prep our data on gender based violence and childbirth fistula  in Eastern D.R. Congo  (http://www.panzihospitalbukavu.org/) for presentation at conferences around the globe in 2010, the words of an African colleague working at another fistula center in Addis Ababa (http://www.fistulafoundation.org/hospital/history/)  continue to haunt all such efforts to end the limitless chaos created by generations of colonization, corruption, lack of infrastruture, self-serving leadership and poor access to education that puts  all Congolese  women in constant danger – “We’ll know we’ve succeeded when we can close our fistula hospital because it is no longer needed”. – see http://www.hhi.harvard.edu/programs-and-research/gender-based-violence/democratic-republic-of-congo for the latest from Lake Kivu. We all look forward to the day that all African women can reap the benefits of the modern obstetrical practices that lifted the bain of childbirth fistula from the lives of  their European and North American sisters in the late 1800s.