By Yunus S Saliu
Taking into consideration the fear and lack of courage to divulge some health constraints confronting some women folks, men have been tipped to be the frontlines fighter against endometriosis, one of silent diseases affecting some young girls and women in the country.
Men as husbands, brothers and fathers, according to the public relations officer of Let’s Fight Endometriosis organization, should join women to fight endometriosis by creating enabling environment “and give girls and women courage to speak out their health constraints.
Sheriff Saihou Kanuteh, a songwriter and actor enjoined the men to be women supporting system and not their nightmares and give them adequate consolidation that will make them feel comfortable in society.
Mr Kanuteh never knew anything about existence of endometriosis until he got information about this silent tormentor dwelling amongst girls and women folk in the society. Since his awareness of the disease, he has taken it upon himself to stand by Endo warriors fighting endometriosis.
Endometriosis, he explained, is “a disease in which the tissue that lines the inside of the uterus or womb presents outside of the uterus. Endometriosis most commonly occurs in the lower abdomen or pelvis, but can appear anywhere in the body.”
Its symptom “include sever lower abdominal pain, pain during menstrual periods and also during sexual intercourse, and difficulty to get pregnant,” he stated.
According to him, in The Gambia, the most dangerous thing about the disease is that “many of the girls and women in our societies never realized they are affected until it is almost too late. Some misconstrue endometriosis with the normal menstrual cramps which made it impossible for them to realize what it really is.”
Mr Kanuteh said pains which women with endometriosis go through is real and severe and “most of the girls never realize the occurrence of endometriosis in their reproductive health system until they get married, only to find out that they are infertile due to this disease.”
In continuation of their sensitization of the public about it, “Let’s Fight Endo organization will be doing a massive awareness walk on 6th March, 2021, starting from Traffic Lights, Fajara, to the Youth Monument at Westfield,” he announced.
“Since infertility is highly regarded as a taboo in African societies, most of these married infertile girls and women are undergoing a lot of discrimination and stigmatization mostly from their husbands and members of their matrimonial families,” he expressed their situations.
He expressed further, this been the reason while majority of them decided to keep silent about the bitter conditions they are going through in their matrimonial homes, at the same time trying to bear in silent the extreme pain being caused by endometriosis.
Further to his expression, most of the affected girls and women are of the thought that speaking out about the presence of a disease in their reproductive health system that is causing infertility, it will only cause more harm by jeopardizing their integrity in society and eventually lose their marriages – “thus they adapt to the common culture of silence.”
However, Let’s Fight Endo was established by a young Gambia-American lady, Fatou ‘Tuta’ Jome in 2018, registered in The Gambia and United States of America. Currently, the organization is seeking affiliations and partnership with international bodies offering medical and aid services to women in Africa suffering from the disease.
More so, it is a non-profit organization dedicated to raising awareness about endometriosis and providing scientific, medical and educational support to victims in The Gambia and Africa at large.
