- Practice has no health benefits, only harm – WHO
- It prevents our girls from promiscuity – Osun circumcisers
Based on scientific evidence, Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting constitutes a tragic health and human rights issue for girls and women in a number of countries like Nigeria, where it is still being practised till date.
Experts say the practice has serious health consequences on the victims and survivors.
Attempts to eradicate the practice in Nigeria have not been successful over the past few decades. Worse still, medicalisation of the practice has added to its propagation. But the World Health Organisation is opposed to all forms of FGM/C and is emphatically against the practice being carried out by healthcare providers (medicalisation).
FGM/C is a cultural practice in Nigeria that has been with citizens for decades. Since its existence for so many years now, no single good has come out of it, neither has it added any value to the society.
This harmful and deadly practice, instead, has left so much devastating impact on the health of its victims – women and girls who are erroneously mutilated, all in the name of preventing them from being promiscuous.
FGM/C is considered an extremely harmful traditional practice, documented in 28 countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. It comprises all procedures involving partial or total removal of the external female genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons. Despite the increasing campaigns against the barbaric act, many medical professionals have been engaging in the act, thus causing a setback to the eradication process of the practice.
Recently, Acting Country Representative of the United Nations Population Fund, Eugene Kongnyuy, revealed that 13 per cent of women – about one out of every 10 – who have been genitally mutilated in Nigeria, were cut by medical professionals.
This, stakeholders said, was totally unacceptable, insisting that the new trend of FGM practice, commonly referred to as the “medicalisation of FGM, would longer be tolerated.
The Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, described the involvement of medical personnel in the barbaric practice as shocking.
He said there was no reason for medical personnel to join the illegal act, maintaining that the involvement of medical personnel in the promotion of FGM was unacceptable.
“The medicalisation of FGM in Nigeria is actually shocking. Nigeria bears at least 10 per cent of the burden of FGM globally. Out of 200 million women with FGM, Nigeria accounts for 20million. Twenty-five per cent in Nigeria have FGM; that is really very shocking to hear. Therefore, FGM is a human right problem. To me, it is unacceptable that medical personnel are enticed to it because it helps their pocket, but that is not a justification,” he said.
According to WHO’s data, “FGM has no health benefits, and it harms girls and women in many ways. It involves removing and damaging healthy and normal female genital tissue, and interferes with the natural functions of girls’ and women’s bodies.”
Report shows that some communities in the Western and Eastern parts of the country are still holding on to the practice till date.
Findings by our correspondent in IIe-Ife Community in Ife Local Government Area of Osun State, clearly revealed some of the erroneous reasons for the practice as explained by some local age-long circumcisers.
Osun State in South-West Nigeria, which has 77 per cent prevalence rate is among the six states with high-prevalence rate of FGM practice in the country. The rest are Ebonyi, Ekiti, Imo, Oyo and Lagos states.
One of the local circumcisers and head of circumcisers in Ile Ife community, Chief Isaiah Fayomi, who has been in the business of both male and female circumcision for over 60 years, along with his wife, Christiana, said the main reason for the practice was to prevent promiscuity and waywardness among their female children.
Pa Fayomi, 83, born into the family of circumcisers, said, “I do my work professionally. Mothers bring their female children to me for circumcision in my house and sometimes, they invite me to their homes. Sometimes, I travel out of Ife Community to go and circumcise women and girls, including pregnant women. I also repair the ones that are badly circumcised. I charge between N500 and N1,000 for children and N5,000 for adult.
“Just as I have said before, we believe in Osun State that FGMC reduces the woman’s chances of running after men.”
Another female circumciser, Mrs. Babatunde Sadia, shared similar views with Fayomi.
“It is right to circumcise a girl to avoid scratching her genitalia and to avoid promiscuity,” she said.
Again, she said the practice was carried out to make the vagina clean.
“There is an organism that I find inside the clitoris whenever I circumcise a girl. So, the practice makes our girls clean and less promiscuous,” she insisted.
Giving further insight into the practice, a mother of five (two boys and three girls) from the state, popularly called Iya Basira, said the reason for cutting her girls was to prevent them from going after men when they grow up.
“Those of us from Osun State, we circumcise our girls. It is a culture we met on ground. My mother circumcised me and also helped me to get my three girls circumcised so that they don’t go about looking for men when they become adults. We believe that the practice will help our girls not to be promiscuous and also help them in preserving their virginity till they get married.
“My mother told me that if the clitoris of a girl is not cut, when she grows up into adulthood, the clitoris will be scratching her. And once it starts scratching her, she will begin to thirst for sex and I don’t want that to happen to them, that is why I have to circumcise them, including this my last girl that is eight months old,” she said.
Vehemently kicking against the practice, the National President, Inter-Africa Committee on FGM, Prof. Modupe Onadeko, pointed out that mutilation could lead to maternal mortality and “we can’t continue to be losing women like that because they can contribute a lot to socio-economic development.”
According to Onadeko, who is also the Community Health Physician and Consultant, Reproductive/Family Health, University College Hospital, Ibadan, harmful traditional practices, such as FGM, must not be tolerated as it often results in premature death of girls and women, as well as leaves many physically, medically, psychologically/emotionally damaged for life.
He maintained that no girl or woman should ever be subjected to female genital mutilation because it had no single benefit.
There are four types of FGM according to her, namely:
Type 1 – the removal of the hood of the clitoris.
Type 2 – the removal of the whole clitoris as well as part of the small lip of the vagina.
Type 3 – the total excision of the whole female genitalia and suturing of the vagina. This is also called Infibulation.
Type 4 – anything done to the vagina that cannot be assigned to the categories above is put under this category.
