Life Long Effects

Photo: John Rodsted

Most victims are injured or killed after wars are over. People who step on landmines often lose legs, arms, vision, hearing, and many die. These victims also have to deal with the effect of their injuries for the rest of their lives.

Landmines do not just affect the people who step on them. Communities, countries and the entire world feel the effects of landmines.

Social Costs

• Survivors often feel they are a burden on their families and communities.
  
• Often activities survivors did before their injury become difficult or impossible. This often leads to low self-esteem.
  
• Women risk their lives daily by fetching wood and farming in mined areas and need to continue this work even after being injured by a mine. Often unmarried female survivors may not find a husband. Women are often given the responsibility of caring for family members injured by mines.
  
• Sometimes survivors are shunned from their communities.
  
• Wheelchairs are unusable in many communities as buildings are usually not wheelchair accessible and roads are too poor for wheelchair use.

Economic Costs

• Often survivors have difficulty finding jobs. Some resort to begging while others depend on family members to support them.
  
• If a parent is injured by a landmine, sometimes one of the children will have to leave school to take care of younger siblings and work to support the family.
  
• Medical care is extremely expensive and often families simply cannot afford medical care or go into debt trying to pay medical bills.
  
• Farming, transportation and reconstruction of the country is slowed or halted.
  
• Mines make it difficult for teachers, health care workers and other people to travel to mine-affected communities.
  
• Fields contaminated with landmines are often left uncultivated. The loss of agricultural lands can cause communities to use land that is dangerous or unproductive. Often people have no choice and must farm areas that could be mined.
  
• Decreased agricultural productivity often results in communities becoming dependent on foreign assistance.
  
• Landmine clearance is very expensive, especially for countries recovering from conflicts.

Imagine This Imagine that you are a father of five children in Cambodia. You lost one leg to a landmine. Farming your rice paddies was the only work you had every known, and now you can no longer work in the fields. You don't know what other work you can do. Your wife and children work in the fields and you are left at home, feeling like a burden on your family. Many other people in your community have been injured by mines, and they don't have jobs either. Your medical costs are very expensive, and your family went into debt trying to pay them. What can you do to support your family?

Medical Consequences

• Often medical care is not locally available and the injured person may travel for hours or even days, by oxcart, motorbike or other means, to receive treatment.
  
• Victims often die from lack of blood. They need about twice as many blood transfusions as other war wounded, and often the blood supply is very low and has not been screened for diseases such as Hepatitis or HIV/ AIDS.
  
• Mine victims often require amputations to remove tissue infected with debris from the mine explosion. Sometimes anesthetic is not available.
  
• Often wounds become infected and antibiotics are not always available, leading to re-amputation or death.
  
• The healing process takes a long time. Patients need an average of 4 operations and 32 days in hospital to recover.
  
• After wounds heal, amputees require physical rehabilitation and often prosthetics (artificial limbs), which, when available are very expensive.
  
• Only 30% of survivors receive prosthetics. They cost approximately $125.00 USD, more than most families can afford.
  
• Health care systems are often poor in countries recovering from war, and mine victims use many of the few available medical resources.

Refugee Consequences

• Mines are often placed on borders and many refugees are injured as they flee areas of fighting.
  
• As refugees return home, some step on mines planted after they fled. They may not be recognize the warning signs indicating an area is mined.
  
• Refugees are a mobile population, which makes it difficult for them to receive medical care and mine awareness training.