Global Women's Voices: Share Personal Stories

Nino, Georgia

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Nona, 27 years old; Nona has husband and 4 children. Her husband is in Russia therefore they have no regular sexual relations. They could not afford having many children but therefore they have 4 (the most senior one is 5 months). Their economic situation is dire. They live in a hotel (in two rooms live 6 persons). Nona is unemployed.

As their neighbors told us Nona is Sectant. Her mother-in-law involved her in the sect. Her mother-in-law doesn’t allow her insert IUD, because it is against her religious values. She can not use pills because she doesn’t know when her husband will arrive from Russia and because wrong perception on pills and their negative effect.

Her husband refuses to use condoms, says that it is her responsibility to take here of contraceptives and he doesn’t care. She can use only spermicides (Farmatex, and Patentex-oval) but those are not available at the FP cabinet.
She doesn’t have sufficient income (her monthly income is 17 GEL it is equivalent to 8 USD) and she can not afford to buy spermicides that are very expensive.

Currently Nona is pregnant for the 5th time. She can not effort to have one more child. She hadly feeds her 4 children. She is afraid that she wouldn’t be able to take care of one more child and in addition her state of health is not satisfactory, during her pregnancies she had lost almost all of her teeth. She decided to do an abortion but when she told it to her husband, he beat her up and stopped her from doing abortion. Nona is 27 years old, and soon she will be mother of 5 children.

updated: 7/2/2004