Oyo govt declares war on female genital mutilation

The Oyo State Government has declared war on the high incident of female genital mutilation (FGM) in the state, adding that it has zero tolerance dangerous culture of mutilating girls against the background of the huge record of challenges facing the feminine gender across the country.

The Oyo State representative of the Center for Population and Reproductive Health (C P R H), Dr Millicent Ogun, made this known at a public declaration against Female Child Harmful Traditional Practices at a community engagement of traditional and religious leaders which held at Odo-Fufu, Akeetan and Ojongbodu in Oyo West Local Government Area of the state.

Dr Ogun stressed the need to completely eliminate the uncalled and dangerous culture of FGM, having reviewed huge records of challenges facing women and girl children in the country, adding that “the various breakages and the aftermath of untold consequences and challenges accumulating daily with the highest records call for concern.”

According to the doctor, FGM is one of the major causes of broken homes affecting females considering the shocking reasons for divorce, marital disappointments, difficult and delayed labour during childbirth, lack of sexual urge, genital health risks and many other disorders in the affected female private parts, adding that this takes a great percentage of reasons for separation among affected spouses according to reproductive health professionals.

Also speaking, the state president for the Federation of Muslim Women Association of Nigeria (FOMWAN), Dr Bushrat Oloso said “to end female genital mutilation, we must do these three things, educate the entire society on the aftermath, consequences, ill-health attached, disadvantages and untold challenges unknown to all, secondly, information and advocacy projects and raising voluminous public awareness on what victims of FGM face daily in their marriages.

She noted that the essence of advocacy visits and consultation with community leaders, health workers, circumcisers, health educators, traditional and religious rulers and traditional birth attendants is to give orientation while some youths were trained as FGM community champions and surveillance teams to conduct door-to-door advocacy to households towards ending FGM.

The coordinator of FOMWAN Project 2020, Alhaja Omowunmi Ogungbenro while delivering the project scope and review also presented the communities with FGM community champions Certificates including the Baale of the communities.

The programme was a collaborative effort between government and FOMWAN, Oyo state chapter with support from United Nations Population Funds (UNFPA) and the Center for Population and Reproductive Health (C P R H)

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