‘Genital Mutilation Should Never Be Done On Any Girl’

MRS.Regina Okoro is a woman anyone would yearn to be like.Tall and elegant, she is an epitome of beauty. Her sonorous voice is all embracing, just as her ebony skin is too awesome for anyone to ignore for admiration.

But that is were the beauty of life had ended for the indigene of Osun state until of recent.Deep down in her, Regina was as sad as refugees in war zone. If you think poverty was behind her sadness, you would be dam wrong, for she and her husband are among what sociologists will conveniently describe as those in the upper-middle class of the society. Her job at a leading oil and gas company in Lagos is as boisterous as the industry in its hail days. And her husband’s teaching job at the University of Lagos (UNILAG) is also enviable.

Regina’s source of sorrow had to do with the marriage itself, although there had never been battery and violence in the marriage.That grief came from the fact that her 10 year-old marriage to Dr Okoro Peter, a criminologist, had never produced an offspring. The couple’s several visits to numerous hospitals, religious centres and traditional medicines practitioners had not produced any known result,at least one that could bring about a baby’s cry in the Okoros’ household.

Worse still, Regina’s sexual life was almost non-existent.For the years she had been married to the indigene of Imo State, she had never initiated sex nor enjoyed sex with her husband.The reason was not far-fetched: keloid of the size of grape fruit had virtually taken over her genitalia.
This was the experience until the couple was referred by an experienced family physician to Prof.Adeyemi Omole, a season gynaecologist and obstetrician at the University College Hospital (CH),Ibadan. After several consultations and tests, Omole detected the muster behind the Okoros woes: female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C). The circumcision Regina had just before she attained the age of one had resulted into keloidal scar.The Okoros were only able to give birth after Regina’s virginal was repaired and the keloid cleared.

Like Regina, some women’s lives have either been ruined or battered by circumcision, popularly known as FGM/C.
FGM/C is defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as all procedures which involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia or injury to the female genital organs, whether for cultural or any other non-therapeutic reasons. In Nigeria, subjection of girls and women to obscure traditional practices is legendary.

According to reproductive health experts, FGM is an unhealthy traditional practice inflicted on girls and women worldwide, and it is widely considered as a violation of human rights, which is deeply rooted in cultural beliefs and perceptions over decades and generations with no easy task for change.

Though FGM is practiced in more than 28 countries in Africa and a few scattered communities worldwide, its highest burden is seen in Nigeria, Egypt, Mali, Eritrea, Sudan, Central African Republic, and northern part of Ghana where it has been an old traditional and cultural practice of various ethnic groups. The highest prevalence rates are found in Egypt and Ethiopia. Nigeria ranks third among countries with highest absolute number of women and girls of who have undergone FGM worldwide.

As part of efforts to end the incidence of FGM, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) held a media dialogue in Oshogbo, Osun State, recently to support high-level FGM abandonment national response.

Speaking of the seriousness of genital mutilations at the occasion, the National President of Inter-African Committee on FGM, Prof.Modupe Onadeko, a retired Professor of Community Medicine at the University of Ibadan (UI), stated that female circumcision is a serious violation of women’s right to quality life, quality health, pleasurable sexual life and freedom from torture.

Onadeko, who seriously condemned the act of cutting women’s genitalia, added that several women survivors are often exposed to life-threatening situations, like serious bleeding, maternal deaths and bacterial infections.

She called on the Federal Government and state governments to enforce existing laws on FGM to help end the burden of the harmful tradition. “ FGM gives rises to high maternal and infant mortality rates,” she said.“ Until there is a high punitive measure to curb FGM, people will not know that we are serious.”

Onadeko urged parents to stop circumcising their daughters.“FGM should never be carried out on any single child, girl or woman. Please join hands in telling others about the ugly consequence associated with FGM.If you teach a child of the way of the Lord and set a good example as a parent, that child would turn out to become a good citizen,” she said.

Explaining the forms of FGM, UNICEF Child Protection Specialist, Maryam Enyiazu, listed clitoridectomy, which is the partial or total removal of the clitoris, and excision, which is the partial or total removal of the clitoris and the labia minora, with or without excision of the labia majora.

Enyiazu further listed other classifications of FGM to include infibulations, which is the narrowing of the vaginal orifice with creation of a covering seal by cutting the labia minora and/or the labia majora, adding that unclassified form of female cutting, including pricking, piercing, incising, scraping and burning of the virginal to deaden sexual urge exists in Nigeria.

Explaining the enormity of FGM in Nigeria, Enyiazu said: “An estimated 19.9 million Nigerian women have undergone FGM/C, meaning that approximately 16 per cent of the 125 million FGM/C survivors worldwide are Nigerians.”

She listed the serious consequence of female circumcision to include “severe pain, serious bleeding, infection of the wound, trauma, problems urinating, tetanus and other infectious diseases, such as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) from unsterilised cutting tools and death.”

Speaking of the efforts being made to bring female circumcision to its kneel, the UNICEF Child Protection Specialist explained that “there is a federal law outlawing the practice of FGM in Nigeria: The Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act (VAPP), 2015,” adding that Lagos, Osun, Ondo, Ekiti, Bayelsa, Edo, Cross River and Rivers “also have laws prohibiting FGM.”
Why has it been difficult to stop FGM? “In communities where FGM is practiced, it is believed to be essential to raise and protect a girl and often to make her eligible for marriage; it is an act of love,” Enyiazu said, adding “ FGM is believed to be the best choice in ensuring their daughter’s future economic and social security wise.”

Explaining that medicalisation of the practice has not helped in curbing the tradition, Enyiazu said: “Families seek the aid of medical personnel to perform FGM on their daughters so, that they can be assured that the medical issues are minimised or alleviated,” adding that “the medicalisation of the practice leads to legitimisation which is undesirable in the effort to abandon the practice.”
She added that serious sanctions await any medical personnel who assist any parent to circumcise the female child.

In Nigeria, FGM has the highest prevalence in the South-south, South East and South West, but practiced on a smaller scale in the north, paradoxically tending to in a more extreme form.Osun, Ebonyi,Ekiti,Ondo and Oyo States are among the states with the highest prevalence across the federation.

UNFPA Gender Analyst, Damilola Obinna, said female circumcision is a serious violation of women sexual and reproductive health, which “ is a state of complete physical, mental, social wellbeing in all matters related to reproductive system to have satisfying and safe sex life as well as capacity to reproduce, freedom to decide if, when, and how often to do so.”

Obinna linked the exposure of FGM to “severe and life threatening health complications” such as post-partum haemorrhage, tetanus, sepsis, urine retention, sexual dysfunction and infertility.
The gender analyst added that FGM has “direct impact on maternal mortality”, as girls and women that have undergone FGM are 70 per cent more likely to suffer hemorrhage after giving birth and are twice as likely to die during childbirth.”

Obinna called on all and sundry to put up a concerted effort to end FGM within the next decade.
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