Worried by the prevalence of Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting, FGMC in Nigeria especially in the Southwest, stakeholders last week at two different workshops in Osogbo and Ilupeju met to discuss the situation. The issue of female circumcision which has been an age long tradition has for sometimes been a serious concern to the government and health practitioners but took a centre stage in the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan.
•Osun State deputy governor, Mrs Grace Laoye-Tomori; Governor Rauf Aregbesola, his wife, Alhaja Sherifat Aregbesola and others at the workshop.
Jonathan had signed into law the stoppage of the traditional practice. The wife of Osun State governor and the initiator of Sherif Care Foundation, SCARF, Mrs Sherifat Aregbesola gathered some state governors’ wives and Unicef representatives in Osogbo where the matter was thoroughly discussed.
While the workshop in Osogbo was going on, journalists from Ekiti, Osun and Oyo states were at Ilupeju in Ekiti State for training on how to end the practice through public sensitisation and enlightenment against FGMC. The United Nations International Children’s Fund UNICEF, health experts and media practitioners at the workshop appealed to Nigerians to desist from the practice, saying it is harmful and deadly.
A representative of UNICEF, Mrs. Roseleen Akinroye, said the practice should be stopped because it leads to life threatening experience for women during childbirth. She condemned some medical professionals who engage in the practice, saying it is unacceptable. Akinroye, who is a Child Protection Specialist, said: “This harmful practice is unacceptable and should not be encouraged by anybody under any guise. Total abandonment of the practice should be preached by all.”
The Osun State Coordinator of Inter African Committee on Harmful Traditional Practices, Mrs. Aduke Obelawo, said it was worrisome that some medical workers engaged in female circumcision. A Consultant on Reproductive and Family Health, University College Hospital, Ibadan, Prof. Dupe Onadeko, also charged parents to desist from the act.
The health expert said the practice was found to be an ineffective means of preventing promiscuity among ladies. She said the harmful practice had been found to be highly ineffective to curb promiscuity and should be stopped because of its numerous adverse effects on health. She stated that the prevalence of FGMC is very high in Osun, Ekiti and Oyo States, stressing that this practice should be discarded because it does not prevent the vice which many taught it prevents.
Onadeko said, “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. “We need First Ladies to be at the fore front of the campaign to curb FGMC. They are influential persons who many look up to. I think they should be the champions in the campaign against this harmful practice.”
Onadeko lauded Ekiti and Osun States for putting up legislation to stop the practice while urging Oyo to speed up the process of legislating against it. Participants at the seminar also appealed to parents and guardians not to be swayed by the mythical beliefs of local circumcisers.
Aregbesola commends Jonathan
At the Osogbo workshop, the Governor of Osun State, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbeýsola commended former President Jonathan for prohibiting female genital mutilation in Nigeria. He said, “If I have been saying that the former President has not done any good for the country like most people have been saying, I want to use this opportunity to commend the former President for just one good thing he has done on the female genital mutilation law.
“Former President Goodluck Jonathan did one good thing against Female Genital Mutilation, which makes it a crime for anybody to mutilate the genital organ, there is a law signed by him on the 5th of May this year. “Everybody must work hard to ensure that the practise is done away with, besides the damage it has done to women; it has created health challenges like acute urinary retention.
“We have not established any scientific advantage let alone any religion supporting the practice. It is just a human design to suppress the other sex. We must all tell our society that an end must be put to Female Genital Mutilation in our society and Nigeria”.
Earlier, the wife of the of the governor, Mrs Sherifat Aregbesola in her welcome address described female genital mutilation as primitive. Mrs. Aregbesola stated that it is disturbing that the primitive practice is prevalent in Osun, saying all hands will be on deck at ensuring that the practice is eradicated in a no long distant time.
Genitalmutilation
She chided the procedure of female genital mutilation which involves partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, noting that the procedures intentionally alter and cause injury to the female genital organ. “Our meeting here today will be the first in the series of high level collective efforts initiated by the UNFPA to eradicate female genital mutilation. Female genital cutting is very disturbing”. She told the gathering.
Speaking also, the country representative of the UNFPA, Ms. Ratidzai Ndhlovu, charged Osun State to work and ensure the eradication of the practice. She stressed that Osun has the highest prevalence rate of 7.6percent followed by Oyo state with 7.2percent rate.
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