Infertility and Victim Blaming

This is a story of a couple in the village. It is a sad story of love, disappointment and anguish.

There is a young lady in the village that’s married, but I noticed I had not been seeing her husband. I kept asking after him until the day he showed up. He wanted to see me and he seemed desperate. I met with him and his wife after the service, and he narrated his story. They had been married for a while but had not been blessed with a child. 

He took his wife to a traditional fertility clinic in another village for treatment. After a couple of visits, he left his wife to be going there alone for the treatment, which was to take some weeks. A few weeks after, he noticed the wife was no longer going there, and she had become moody. He asked the wife what was wrong, but she wouldn’t say anything. After much pressure, she opened up that the herbalist had slept with her and she couldn’t bear to go back to him. "This is a taboo! A sacrilege!! How could she do this?"

The husband was furious with his wife but kudos to him he did not discuss the issue with anybody but kept it to himself until he felt comfortable to tell only me. When he was narrating the story, I noticed the wife was quiet with her head hung low. I looked at her, she burst into tears, and I could feel her agony. Only one thing went through my mind…how do I save this woman and this home? They would look at this issue from the cultural angle more than from a biblical perspective. I thought of the story of the adulterous woman in the Bible but I felt this would not apply as they would not understand. I was angry but needed to make sense of my message to ho him. His wife was the victim here! I silently asked God for help.

Then a thought rang in my head. I looked at the husband and said “you are a wicked man! How can you be so cruel?” He looked at me, wondering what he had done wrong. I told him he exposed his wife to such evil. Firstly, how could they be coming to church and he did not trust the power of prayers but instead chose a traditional house? Secondly, they did not tell me about it before going to the traditional fertility clinic. Thirdly, he left his wife at the mercy of the man till the man defiled his wife. “Do you not know that any woman who is looking for a child is vulnerable and gullible and would do anything she is asked to do?” 

I told him what the Bible says about such men who allow others to fall. A millstone should be tied around their necks before being thrown into the sea (Luke 17:1-2). The only way out was for him to ask for forgiveness and apologize to his wife. He soberly looked at me, but I kept a straight face. I was truly angry with him. He looked at his wife and apologized. We all prayed together, and I could see he was fighting away tears. A man must be strong and should not cry. Perhaps that’s what went through his mind. I thought.

Well, to cut the story short, I took them to a general hospital in Abuja where they started attending a fertility clinic. This brought back peace to that home and provided an alternative to the traditional clinic. They are still attending the clinic, and we are still praying.