Women in Ethiopia struggle to survive without water
By Mustafah Abdulaziz and <
http://www.msnbc.com/person/johnny-simon> Johnny
Simon
15/05/2014
See the Pictures:
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/ethiopia-water-shortage
In the Konso Region of southern Ethiopia, the struggle for clean, safe water
is a daily reality for women and young girls.
"Bringing the water is not a simple task," says Mariam Bakaule, a mother
standing at the edge of the mountaintop village of Jarso. "This is the
essence of women. Water and woman are synonymous here."
The village of Jarso, like many of the others in the area, overlooks a vast
valley stretching towards the Kenyan border. Yet the relative greenery of
the region is deceptive. For the 13,000 people in Jarso, lack of rain in
recent years has caused crops of maize, sorghum and haricot beans to fail.
At the center of this struggle to survive are the women and young girls
whose responsibility it is to trek up to five hours a day to reach dry river
beds, only to wait in long lines for scant resources. Uchiya Nallo, an
eight-months-pregnant 29-year-old mother, spends half her day climbing a
mountainside carrying more than 5 gallons (about 40 pounds) of water.
"The road is very dangerous and I feel tired all the time," she says. "I am
worried because sometimes I fall down and hurt myself. I worry because I
feel tired. Now I am almost ready to give birth and I am walking slowly but
maybe I will have some problems, I'm not sure."
The correlation between the risk of maternal mortality for women in the
developing world and access to safe water and sanitation is little
understood. When water is gathered for drinking or washing, any contaminants
or infectious agents can have a direct effect on maternal health. Infections
and repeated worm infections from unsafe sanitation lead to other risks such
as malnutrition, stunted growth and fatal obstructed labor. And the physical
strain from carrying the water is itself dangerous, resulting in a higher
risk of spinal injury, uterine prolapse, rheumatism hernia and spontaneous
abortion.
In some respects, Ethiopia has made important strides toward the United
Nations Millennium Goals of reducing maternal mortality. Today, just over
half the population has access to water, nearly four times the number in
1990. Yet the country still has a long way to go: While a woman's lifetime
risk of dying during pregnancy and childbirth is 1 in 3800 in the developed
world, in Ethiopia it is 1 in 67.
<
http://www.wateraid.org> WaterAid, an international non-governmental
organization, is one of the groups improving access to clean water among the
world's poor, and has been working in Ethiopia since 1984. In the late
afternoon light of May, villagers in Teshmale gather around a new water
point constructed by the NGO. When the last of the technical difficulties
has been solved, the tap is turned on and water gushes forth, first brown
and then a pure, unclouded torrent.
It is the first time the children, long used to the dirty red water from the
riverbeds, have seen clear water.
<
http://www.mustafahabdulaziz.com/> Mustafah Abdulaziz is a documentary
photographer based in Berlin, Germany. His ongoing project, Water,
exploring water issues around the world, has received grants from the
Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, commissions from the United Nations and
WaterAid.
<
http://www.msnbc.com/photography> For more feature photography, go to
msnbc.com/photography
Received on Wed May 14 2014 - 19:42:14 EDT