A fair skinned lady at a seminar in Oyo State narrates her story: The severe ordeal of bleeding, shock, leakage of urine and faeces she has been passing through since her clitoris was cut off at the age of 6.
In what is called Female Genital Mutilation, FGM; or Female Genital Cutting, FGC, the lady’s story is one among the many unheard stories of what experts have said that women go through as a result of their genital mutilation.
Dr. Adedoyin Ogunyemi who’s a public health expert that leads an advocacy group in Nigeria dedicated to impede the practice, according to Odogwu Media, explains the level of damage those who abide by the practice are heaping on women in the country.
“The practice involves total or partial removal of some or all the female external genitalia or genital reproductive organs for cultural, non-medical reasons, causing injury to the female organs,” Dr. Adedoyin Ogunyemi tells the source.
Ogunyemi further opines that in the circumcision, “the glands and clitoris, the vaginal tips are cut off. It’s no longer circumcision, but mutilation.”
The medical connoisseur adds that the world over the practice is seen and condemned “as violation of human rights of women.”
Criminalising FGM
Dr. Goodluck Jonathan as outgoing President Federal Republic of Nigeria saw the need to sign into law a ban on the practice across the country on May 5 this year.
Criminalising the practice, Jonathan’s name resonates beyond the shores of the country. Crusaders against the FGM practice worldwide hoped that the ban in Nigeria would influence other African countries where the practice is a cultural practice than scientific.
But that was not the case as the ban merely exists on papers and not in the villages of Nigeria, as stories why the ban have sustained to come out of some states and villages in the country since then.
Practice in villages
In the Yoruba tribe of Nigeria for instance, it might be very difficult for the people to put a stop to the practice, which they see as an aged-long cultural and traditional practice.
Checks revealed that 60% of families in Oyo State still engage in FGM, reported News Agency of Nigeria, NAN.
The source further exposed that the President of Nigeria Inter-Africa Committee on Campaigns against Harmful Traditional Practices against Women and Girls, Modupe Onadeko said that while February 6th of every year had been declared by the World Health Organisation, WHO, as a day set aside to condemn the FGM practice across the world, some girls between the ages of 6 and 18 were still being mutilated especially on the eve of their wedding while others were cut to the day they would be delivered of their baby.
“Some girls were mutilated on the eve of their wedding while some women were cut a few weeks to their delivery day. Reasons why this practice was done were mainly based on the African culture which believes that if a girl is not circumcised, she will be promiscuous when she gets old. Some people also believe that if the baby’s head touches the clitoris, it will die among others reasons,’’ Modupe Onadeko said in an interview with NAN.
Mr. Vitalis Ekwem, a Child Rights Advocate and United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund, UNICEF, Consultant and also, the Imo State Director of National Orientation Agency, NOA, at a sensitisation campaign in September this year (of which the UNICEF was in attendance on the need people should eschew FGM, at Ikeduru Local Government Area, LGA), said that about six states in the country still observe FGM, with reasons based on culture.
Apprehension still on
UNICEF made a statement in July 2013, saying that while over 125 million girls and women alive today have undergone female genital mutilation, 30 million more girls are at risk in the next decade, because laws are not enough to stop the practice but the people, even though that the FGM is on decline.
“As many as 30 million girls are at risk of being cut over the next decade if current trends persist, laws are not enough to stop the practice entirely, and more people must speak out in order to eliminate it among certain ethnic groups and communities.
“Social acceptance is the most commonly cited reason for continuing the tradition, even though it is considered a violation of human rights. The tradition remains remarkably persistent, despite nearly a century of attempts to eliminate it,” UNICEF reported.
Campaign to eradicate the practice
The FGM has lingered to be eradicated due to the fact that various faith-based organisations practice it. Christians, Muslims and followers of African traditional spiritualities are not exempted.
However, tremendous support of the practice is waning down. In November this year, First Ladies in Nigeria mounted an exhaustive campaign against the practice with two sensitisation workshops staged at Osogbo.
At the workshops, Prof. Dupe Onadeko, a Consultant on Reproductive and Family Health, University College Hospital, Ibadan, thrilled parents to eschew engaging in the practice.
The professor waved aside the aged-long belief that ladies whose genital organs are not mutilated are prone to lasciviousness, saying, “99 per cent of prostitutes are circumcised. This is from a survey carried out among prostitutes. So, the belief that this practice curbs prostitution is erroneous.”
Odimegwu Onwumere is a Poet/Writer; he writes from Rivers State, Nigeria. ([email protected]). Tel: +2348057778358.
