Mon amie

A young girl that I see frequently in my comings and goings about town had a difficult question for me today. I don’t know her name, but we always greet each other with smiles and “salut, mon amie!” She works in one of the telecenters, privately owned phones available for public use. As cell phones have become more and more prevelant, telecenters are harder and harder to find along the streets. But you can call anywhere for a nice price, all recorded through units you watch tick by as you talk. This telecenter in particular is the one I use to call home, since the units tick by at a pace slower than the usual $3/minute.

She has met all my visitors at some time or another as we have all been in there to call home, and she has sat quietly and watched me cry as I work through moments of homesickness. Today, after I made a call home, she looked up at me from behind her desk and said, “Mon amie, I have so much shame, but I must ask you a question.” I was a bit puzzled- what could she possibly want to ask? I prepared myself for a request for money. Instead, she told me that her sister is pregnant and at a loss for what to do. She is terrified to have the child, but does not know where to go and to whom to turn. Did I know anything or anyone who could help? It was the last thing that I expected her to say, and I actually was at a loss on how to respond. My mind flashed back to the marketplace in Agadez where I had pointed out to Chris some blue powder that brightens laundry that women in Senegal used to drink to abort fetuses. It was also known to kill the desperate woman who drank it. I told her that I would think about it and get back to her.

Having a child here out of wedlock would be a disaster. The child is sure to be treated badly and to have few opportunities in life, and the mother has no chance at marriage and therefore no future financial and social security. Neither one has a chance.

I didn’t even know who to ask. Abortion is illegal here, and even the private French clinic that treats individuals like myself will not perform them. I thought of several Nigerien friends here to ask, but I quickly realized that they would also express religious views that would condemn the very question. Even the President of an organization with the tagline “Maternity without Risk” replied, “It is so delicate. I cannot ask anyone since they will then talk and say that the organization promotes abortion.”

But abortions are one of the main causes of maternal mortality worldwide. If she is desperate enough, she will seek out a traditional healer who may give her something to drink that could make her very ill and possibly kill her. She may decide to have the baby and live the rest of her life in the streets. Or she may hide somewhere for the remaining few months and dispose of the child in the sewers. It seems that these are her options.

The abortion debate is certainly one that we are familiar with in the US, but here, in my mind, there is nothing to debate. Policy threatens women’s right to choose in the US, but not the same way that poverty, conservative religious views, and a complete lack of social services have condemned her now no matter what she chooses. Neither she nor the potential child have anywhere to turn, and I too am at a loss.