Safaricom Newsroom

It is estimated that one million women worldwide live with untreated fistula.Behind this staggering estimate are real lives—mothers, daughters, and sisters—enduring unimaginable pain and isolation. Fistula, a devastating childbirth injury, occurs when women in labor cannot access life-saving emergency care.Trapped in prolonged, obstructed labor without medical help, they survive—but are left with a body that can no longer control urine or feces. The physical agony is only the beginning. The shame, loneliness, and crushing stigma that follow often steal their futures.In Kenya, roughly 1% of women of reproductive age have experienced fistula-like symptoms, but exact numbers remain unknown. Many suffer in silence, hidden away by a world that misunderstands their condition.Beyond the relentless leaking and infections, these women face stillbirths, chronic pain, infertility, and nerve damage.