Dr Kayode Fayemi’s government in Ekiti State has urged its citizens and residents to be united and cooperate with it in the war it is waging against Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) scorge in the society.
The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development, Mrs Foluke Adeyemo, who gave the charge in Ado-Ekiti during a sensitization walk to commemorate the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation described the harmful traditional practice as barbaric. She called for complete eradication of the harmful practice because of numerous dangers associated with it.
Adeyemo, who lauded the efforts of government, particularly the logistics so far put in place to eradicate the evil practice listed the areas of government concentration to include awareness, sensitization, Girl-child education, and community-Led actions enlightenment programmes, amongst others.
In her own remarks, Mrs Tayo Olatilu, a member of the State Technical Committee (STC) representing the Ministry of Women Affairs explained that the Committee, set up primarily to eradicate Female Genital Mutilation in Ekiti State comprises representatives/stakeholders from Ministries of Justice, Women Affairs, Health & Education, Science and Technology, Police Force, National Orientation Agency (NOA), Federation of Female Lawyers (FIDA), National Council of Women Society (NCWS), Nigerian Association of Women Journalists (NAWOJ) and some other NGOs.
Mrs Olatilu described FGM as the direct cutting of genitalia (clitories) for no medical reasons except for traditional beliefs and culture.
Olatilu, who disclosed that about 200million African, Asian and Nigerian living girls and women have had their clitoris cut named Nigeria as a country having the largest number of FGM worldwide.
The Ekiti State Ministry of Women Affairs representative also mentioned promoters of this harmful traditional practice to include mothers, mothers-in-law, grandmothers, opinion leaders and men. She listed the FGM practitioners to include traditional/local, health professionals and midwives.
Mrs. Olatilu, therefore encouraged citizens to key in and embrace zero tolerance to FGM in the society by propagating the message to make it a thing of the past like the killing of twins of old.
Also speaking, another STC member, Mrs Kemi Adeleye, a representative of the State Ministry of Health listed some of the numerous dangers of FGM to include over bleeding, severe pains, infertility, prolonged labour, urinary retention, keloid, frigidity amongst others.
Female Genital Mutilation, also known as female genital cutting and female circumcision is the ritual cutting or removal of some or all of the external female genitalia is recognized internationally as a violation of the human rights of girls and women. It is mostly carried out on young girls between infancy and age 15.
Packaged by Emmanuel Adeniran
