New Telegraph

FGM: UNICEF blames medical practitioners on increasing cases in Ebonyi

United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) Friday blamed medical practitioners and Traditional Birth Attendants (TBA) for increasing cases of Female Genital Mutilations (FGM) in Ebonyi State

It said some medical practitioners were perpetrating the act, describing it as very dangerous.

The UNICEF explained that health workers were most expected to be at the forefront of sensitisation of the populace on the dangers of FGM and not engaging in it.

It stated this on the occasion of a one-day training workshop program, organised for law enforcement officers and judiciaries on the Violence against persons (prohibition) law, No.002 of 2018, by Ebonyi State Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development (MWASD) with support from UNICEF which held in Ohaukwu Local Government Area of the state.

Addressing participants at the event, Director Child Protection, Ministry of Women Affairs, Godwin Igwe, noted that medical practitioners formed the rapid increase witnessed in FGM.

He, however, said there was need for a grass root sensitization in other to disabuse the mind of uninformed parents that the doctors are misleading.

He said: “The trained and quack medical practitioners are enhancing female genital mutilations in the state. They deceive uninformed parents that they have anaesthetic, they shouldn’t mind the claims that FGM is bad, that what is bad about it is the pain, that they have injections they will give to cut the clitoris, that there would be no harm.

“So we are saying that there is a need to wage the relentless war, it is not to the urban based, we need to go to the hinterland to inform the people, to disabuse their minds. It is not all about gathering in the hotels, we can go to the market square, not to the traditional rulers alone, some people owe no allegiance to the traditional rulers, because some of them are not the choice of the people.

“That is why it is important to meet the people in their groups, churches, august meetings which is fast approaching to tell them that it is not only because of pain that we say they should abandon FGM, but other negative effect that follows.”

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