By Garmah Never Lomo, garmahlomo@gmail.com
Several persons experiencing infertility, including Marketers and motorcyclists in Tubmanburg, Bomi Count, have questioned the role of Liberia’s First Lady, Mrs. Clar Weah in helping to bring their condition to an end.
Bomi is situated in western Liberia, just 63 kilomerters from Monrovia.
According to the Marketers and motorcyclists they have been hearing about this awareness in some counties but what have been role of madam Weah since Merck Foundation came in contact with her, especially in meeting the Heath needs of infertile women and men.
Both Marketers and motorcyclists said it is a good thing to create the awareness, but wondered how those with such problem will not be discriminated against, if there is no way forward.
They recommended to the first lady to create the awareness along with actions or meeting the Heath need of those victims as a means of breaking or reducing the infertility stigma round victims that fall in that category.
Narrating further, the victims of infertility said they have not heard testimony from any infertile woman or man about their condition being improved since Merck Foundation got in contact with the First Lady.
The infertile women and men therefor asked: “What role is she (First Lady Clar Weah) playing?”
While on her awareness tour in Tubmanburg, Bomi County market, this Reporter caught up with Madam Sankay Fofana, an elderly woman who narrated her side of her infertility story.
Madam Fofana explained that she was married for eight years to her husband, both of whom suffered to build to very decent house, but she was disgracefully thrown out of the home, because she cannot bear child or children.
Madam Fofana explained in Tubmanburg market that prior to meeting her husband, she bore a child and he is now 21 years old. But since then, she has never conceived and in fact the child’s father had since passed away.
After her ex-husband drove her from the home, she got into relationship with another man who has many children by his previous partner. But due to her infertile nightmare, she could not maintain this relationship. Therefore, currently she doesn’t have any intimate feeling for men again and lives alone, Madam Fofana added.
Another of infertile woman identified as Jenneh Steven, age 43 said since she gave birth to first child in 1990, and had abortion in 1992, thus subsequently not being able to conceive or bear another child.
Madam Steven added that the issue of stigmatization is not their worry, because they are living with it, as it has become a norm in the Liberian society.
But she said, what matters to people living with infertility is that they desperately want help in finding solutions to their huge condition by Merck Foundation through Liberia’s first lady Clar Weah.