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Partner Campaigns > Women's Repro...

Women's Reproductive Rights Program – Nepal




"Women have their own traditonal healing system. Sometimes they cut a piece of slipper and put it in the vagina just to hold their falling womb, because they have been suffering from so much pain." Hear a leading Nepali advocate describe the crisis of uterine prolapse.


Please be aware that these pages contain images and descriptions that may be upsetting.

Uterine prolapse (UP) stalks its victims and then destroys their lives – in a manner that barely arouses attention. It is caused by overwork, bad birthing practices, and social taboos and occurs when the ligaments of a woman’s uterus can no longer be supported by the pelvic muscles. The uterus then falls out. The condition can kill if infection takes hold, but it is not normally fatal. For this reason, UP has not received the attention it deserves. Yet it is thought that 600,000 women in Nepal suffer from UP. They are condemned to a life of shame, pain and poverty.

The Advocacy Project was alerted to the crisis in the summer of 2007, when AP Peace Fellow Nicole Farkouh wrote a series of blogs on UP from Eastern Nepal. Based on this, AP was asked to help the Women's Reproductive Rights Program to combat UP. Ms Farkouh and Libby Abbott were deployed to Nepal in 2008 as Peace Fellows to help the organization. AP is now helping to launch a campaign of treatment and prevention.

These web pages are offered in support of the campaign. They tell the story of UP through the eyes of women who are affected. The photos and profiles were produced by Ms Farkouh and Ms Abbott in Nepal, under the direction of Samita Pradhan, and edited at AP by Meggan Fitzgerald.

We will need your help to expose and end this unacceptable condition.



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