In Darfur, one husband sticks by his wife despite society's pressure

Women with postchildbirth complications are often ostracized by their own families, but one man took his wife through a war zone to get her treatment.

By Scott Baldauf

from the July 23, 2007 edition

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Nobody would have blamed Omar Abdullah Al Bakar for divorcing his wife last year in his distant village in Sudan's troubled Darfur region.

Mr. Bakar's own family was insisting on it, in fact, after his wife miscarried a child, and suffered a postnatal condition that left her unable to control her bladder.

But Mr. Al Bakar – who is blind – took the cultural road less traveled. He took his wife, Mecca Mohammad Ibrahim, to get help, by donkey cart and car, across war zones, losing most of his possessions in the process, but keeping his small family unit intact.

"This is my wife," he says, sitting on a cot under an acacia tree in the dusty back yard of the Saudi Maternity Hospital here in the town of Al-Fasher, where he and his wife and two sons have lived for almost a year awaiting treatment. "I've had a good life with her, and I need her so we can together raise my sons."

Stories like Omar Abdullah's are a rare exception to the rule in Darfur, where the interests of families and the production of heirs take precedence over those of women. Ostracism of sick women in Darfur is common.

Consider the entire class of 82 student midwives at the Al-Fasher School of Midwifery. All are former patients of fistula, the same injury as Omar's wife, and one that is sadly common in Darfur, where traditions dictate early marriage, and maternal health facilities are few. This makes Omar Abdullah all the more remarkable, and a kind of Darfuri role model for male commitment and dedication. The Al-Fasher School of Midwifery, itself a remarkable institution in a society where women's education is discouraged, is funded by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). [Editor's note: The previous version did not include how the Al-Fasher School of Midwifery is funded.]

But if Omar's choice is rare, it may be because, as a disabled man, he is as dependent on his wife for survival as she is on him for stability and societal acceptance.

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