As the world commemorates the 2022 International Youth Day (IYD), Onelife Initiative has highlighted the need for youths to rely on the support of other generations to end Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in Nigeria.
Nearly 20 million girls and women have experienced FGM in the country, a report by the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), UN Women, and Plan International revealed.
FGM, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), involves the partial or total removal of external female genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons.
In a statement commemorating this year’s IYD, themed ‘Intergenerational Solidarity: Creating a World for All Ages’, Onelife Initiative highlighted the perspectives of women from different generations with respect to this harmful practice.
‘We met our elders cutting the girl child. Girls were cut to prevent them from being bitten by a tiny infection-causing insect (Eeta) which was associated with poor hygiene. Also, to prevent promiscuity. This is why I circumcised all my female children but now anyone still doing it must be a stubborn person…’, Executive Director of Onelife Initiative, ‘Sola Fagorusi, quoted a great grandmother as saying.
According to Fagorusi, another woman from the baby boomer generation said, ‘I circumcised some of my female children because it was the family culture and tradition.
‘As a young wife, I dare not say “No” to the elders. The family of my other husband from Ogun State did not have that culture so my daughters from there were not circumcised’.
In another case, a female Gen Z had this to say: ‘I don’t know what it entails, the advantages or consequences. I have never seen any girl who was circumcised. I just heard they practised it then. I won’t circumcise my girl child because I was told it is not good to circumcise a girl child’.
Former President Goodluck Jonathan signed the Violence Against Persons Prohibition (VAPP) bill into law in May 2015. However, not all the 36 states that make up Nigeria have adopted the VAPP law.
The VAPP law makes FGM and other forms of gender-based violence like rape, spousal battery, forceful ejection from home, harmful widowhood practices punishable offences.
The five most FGM-endemic states in Nigeria are Imo, Kwara, Kaduna, Ekiti, and Ebonyi.
‘In these states, we are educating young people on how to provide end-FGM information, we are engaging with transporters given the ubiquitous nature of their job and are using various behaviour change communication material, both online and offline’, Fagorusi added.
‘Youths need to understand that they can rely on the support of other generations even as far as the silent generation, the baby boomers, the generation X, millennials and even intragenerational within the Gen Z, as they are called’.
The initiative, Development Diaries understands, is supported by YouthHubAfrica and the Africa Youth Commission through the UNICEF-UNFPA Joint Programme on the Elimination of Female Genital Mutilation.
IYD, which is commemorated every year on 12 August, encourages youths around the world to organise activities to raise awareness about the situation of youths in their countries.
Photo source: DFID
