New Telegraph

FGM still being practiced in Ebonyi –Researcher

A researcher, Dr. Obinna Edeh, has said that Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) was still prevalent in Ebonyi State despite campaigns against it. Edeh said FGM was still being practiced and even tacitly encouraged in various communities in the state.

 

The researcher made this known in Abakaliki during consultative meeting with gate keepers and duty bearers from communities and government agencies in the state. It was organised by Women Aid Collective (WACOL) in collaboration with the Ford Foundation.

 

He said: “Although open (female) circumcision is no longer practiced in the state, some forms of it still exist. Women rub ‘Dustin’ powder or ‘Vaseline’ on the clitoris of their baby girls to reduce its size. Eventually, the same result is achieved, that is, an almost inexistent clitoris and with it a diminished sexual appetite.”

 

Edeh, who is a lecturer in the Department of Law, University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN), regretted that women in Ebonyi State had suffered all forms of violence and called for an end to it. The WACOL Programme Officer, Mrs. Ijeoma Uzoechi, said the meeting was organised to eliminate all forms violence against women and girls in the state and called for concerted effort to end the practice.

 

She said: “We invited opinion leaders and women leaders to actually look at these issues, even those ones that people think that they are normal, the unwritten laws, to really talk about them; those ones that negatively or adversely affect women in Ebonyi State.

 

Talk about the ones that touch their psychology, that touch their characters, that do not allow them to really reach their potential which really drag us back as communities because by the time somebody is not able to fully utilise his or her potential, the person’s output will not be much and that drags the development of communities backward.

 

“So, if you are looking for an accelerated development, we need to work towards ensuring that all persons, whether women or men, work in communities to ensure that there is a full utilisation of human resources to ensure that communiIG, Adamu ties are developed.”

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