Story Fatema

Fatema is a 14 years old girl and goes to secondary school with great pleasure. She has girlfriends at school and  is not booed.

At home it is not nice at the moment. In the severe floods in 2014 they lost their home, due to severe erosion the land disappeared under their feet and the swirling river took their home and allotment. Since then they live with the five of them in their uncle house.
Fatema does not feel at ease with her cousins ​​and uncle. In the puberty her breasts started to grow and it seems that everyone sees that. She hides her breasts as her sister and girlfriends do under a scarf. She tells us about the huge panic she experienced when she suddenly started bleeding.

“I had no idea what was happening and did not dare to tell anyone. When everyone slept, I quickly went to the bathroom to wash my clothes. I am scared in the dark, but even more afraid to say to my mother that I am bleeding. I did not dare to share it with my sister either, she only sees me if I can be blamed for something”.

“Since a couple of months I go with a few (disabled) friends from my school to a class  reproductive health. The first lessons were very exciting, I shyly learned to name my body parts. Now I know why I bleed every month, what it’s called and why only girls get it. My mother and sister sees me now, every week they hear me out what I have learned in those special lessons”.

Fatema passed away on September 23, 2021. She was only 17 years old and had completed the ‘right to decide’ training in September. She obtained her last certificate ‘money management’ and was full of dreams about a future as a small entrepreneur.

Read more about our SRHR program or read the story of Beauty