By Ayodele Abere.
The Executive Director of Balm in Gilead Foundation for Sustainable Development (BIGIF), Mrs Tumininun Adedeji, has described Female Genital Mutilation as a menace that has been in the State and Nigeria as a whole, which according to her is believed to be part of African culture and that has proven somehow difficult to eradicate.
Adedeji said this while speaking with journalist at the ENDFGM Learning and Sharing Workshop organised by the management of HACEY Health Initiative in Ado-Ekiti, the State capital.
Noting that Ekiti State Government has zero tolerance for FGM practice as it has put in place several laws to prohibit the act, Mrs Adedeji said one of it was the Female Genital Mutilation Law 2002 and the new Gender Based Violence Law 2019, which replaced the 2002 law with a more serious penalty for offenders.
“With all of these, we have had several challenges because the people so much believe in the culture and they value it which makes it somewhat difficult to take it away from them”
The Executive Director of BIGIF noted that with the statistics that just came out, the percentage has reduced from about 71% to 50% in Ekiti State.
“We know that our effort is yielding even though, not as much as we would want it to yield. She therefore suggested that every sector in the State and communities should come together to say we don’t need it, we don’t want to have Female Genital Mutilation in our community again. That’s when we can have result. Mrs Adedeji added.
While speaking, the State Coordinator for HACEY Health Initiative in Ekiti State, Oluwanifemi Ayeni, said the project is called the Stop Cut Project which is to Stop Female Genital Mutilation as the name insinuates.
She explained that the workshop which had representatives from the Government, MDAs, Religious and Community Leaders, Media, Civil Society Organisations, Security Personnel and other relevant stakeholders that are working to end FGM in the State, was more like a feedback from what they have been doing so far and how to improve and strengthen their interventions.
Oluwanifemi explained that every participant at the workshop has been trained in one aspect of the project or the other. Saying they have been trained previously and that the training was to empower them to strengthen their interventions in their organisations or as individuals so that Female Genital Mutilation could be a thing of the past.
Also, the Desk Officer on Female Genital Mutilation, Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development, Ekiti State, Mr.Tolu Ogunniyi, who represented Mrs Caroline Aluko, a Director in the Ministry, noted that FGM is a complete violation of the right of the girl-child and the women entirely.
According to him, “though, it’s inherent in our culture but the fact remains that it has no meaningful value but a complete violation of the right of a girl-child and a lot of harmful consequences are attached to the practice.
“We have different problems associated with our women and girls today that they don’t know it was as a result of the cutting that had been probably done on them. In Ekiti State now for example, research has shown that it’s always done within the first two, three weeks a child is born especially the girl-child” Ogunniyi disclosed.
Mr. Tolu said it’s a practice that should end in Ekiti State saying that there is no moral justification to it but a complete violation of the right of girl-child and the women. He explained that the laws prohibiting the act in Ekiti State are working and anyone caught practicing FGM in the State would go for it.
The desk officer, therefore advised the generality of the people in the State to key into ending the practice.