HORROR OF
FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION
(THE NATION NEWSPAPER - 30 MARCH 2008)
FEMALE
CIRCUMCISION - otherwise known as Female Genital Mutilation is perhaps one of the crudest but harmful traditional practices against women. This obnoxious practice that has endured in 21st century Africa, nay Nigeria has had adverse effects on women’s reproductive health, among other dire consequences.
Angela Ehikioya (not real name), 40 plus, a native of South-Ibie, in Edo State has had two failed marriages due to childlessness. she had foreclosed further chances of marriage until she met Ehis, a man from Oredo North, also in Edo State and they soon tied the nuptial few months after courtship.
A few years later the good Lord finally blessed their union with a child; a baby girl, whom they christened Cynthia and not quite long when the woman got pregnant again for the arrival of the second child.
FAMILY tradition - In keeping with an age-old family tradition that every first female child must undergo circumcision, among other traditional rites to herald the birth of the second child, little innocent Cynthia, aged three was taken for circumcision in 2002 by her grandparents’.
As usual, everybody anticipated a hitch-free exercise because Cynthia’s paternal grandmother was a practiced midwife with over four decades experience to the bargain.
But at the slightest cut of the sharp knife, Cynthia suffered a nervous breakdown which led to convulsion, severe bleeding and death
The victim’s mother who could hardly come to terms with the death of her daughter, Cynthia, left her matrimonial home unceremoniously and relocated to her home town where she is living with her parents as a single mother to her son, Josiah, now age five.
SOCIAL DISLOCATION - The foregoing anecdotes shed light on the social dislocation arising from several cases of female genital mutilation against women in recent times.
The irony however is that several cases go undetected by the public and largely go unreported by the media. One major challenge which members of the civil society have attested to is the fact that a culture of silence still surrounds the issue of FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION, as most victims maintain mute indifference, often times preferring to suffer in silence either for fear of victimization or stigmatization or both.
LUCRATIVE
TRADE - The situation is not any better in other parts of Africa. In the Gambia, FGM is said to be a very lucrative trade fetching quick income for hordes of social health workers who offer sundry services from local anesthesia to antibiotics.
SOCIETAL CONTROL- According to experts, "the consequences far outweigh the societal
CONTROL that is at the centre of this crude practice against the womenfolk". An estimated three million girls a year are thought to be at risk from this practice, many of them Africa. About 10 UN agencies have also demanded for a major reduction in the tradition by 2015.
They contended that it is a strong political will on the part of government and a conscious desire by the people themselves to adapt to change that can end this infamous practice that has since become a black man’s burden. Because it is steeped in culture and the belief system of those who perpetrate this obnoxious act, experts have said.
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