The image haunted me for years. I am ashamed to admit that was the case then. Forty years later, I now know what I had seen, and I know that a prolapsed uterus is one of the most tragic manifestations of poverty and abuse of women in this part of the world. They also give birth in the same stifling surroundings, and often have to return to heavy manual work immediately afterwards. Her husband was appalled by her deformity, so her suffering was two-fold.
Many husbands immediately take another wife.
The uteruses of the other 88 were coaxed back into place and held there with a plastic ring. Other cases were more familiar, and more easily treated like sexually transmitted diseases. Then there is the mostly still foreign-funded war against poverty, and here health clinics like the ones carried out by GTZ are proving to be surprisingly effective. A lot of recent inflow of aid dollars into Nepal from organisations like DFID and the ADB are intended to alleviate Nepal s poverty so that people do not fall into the arms of the Maoists. But most donors fail to realise that the corrupt government that they so lavishly prop with aid are the very reason the Maoists have been so successful.