Moderating certain traditional practices

To discourage the practice and promote the downward slide, the World Health Organisation (WHO) designated February 6 every year as Zero Tolerance Day for FGM. It is still widely practised in some communities in Nigeria. According to Professor Modupe Onadeko, President of Nigeria Inter-Africa Committee on Campaigns against Harmful Traditional Practices against Women and Girls, […]

To discourage the practice and promote the downward slide, the World Health Organisation (WHO) designated February 6 every year as Zero Tolerance Day for FGM. It is still widely practised in some communities in Nigeria. According to Professor Modupe Onadeko, President of Nigeria Inter-Africa Committee on Campaigns against Harmful Traditional Practices against Women and Girls, 60 percent of families in Oyo State still practice FGM.
Professor Onadeko, a retired community physician and consultant on reproductive and family health, observed at a recent forum that the national average prevalence rate of FGM stood at 50 percent.
“Reasons why this practice was done were mainly based on the African culture which holds that if a girl is not circumcised she will be promiscuous when she gets older,” Onadeko said.
Onadeko said that FGM usually leads to severe pain and, in some cases, even death.
She added that the practice could cause haemorrhage which might also lead to cardiac arrest, painful urination, urinary tract infections, and many other STDs.
Fractured hips could also result from pressure on the hip by the adult pinning down the child during such mutilation, she said.
Onadeko added that the long term effects of female genital mutilation include infertility that could result from blocked tube.
Onadeko’s prevalence figures are scanty for a comprehensive national assessment of the problem to be accurately evaluated.  Much of the statistics that some experts and nongovernmental organisations provide are often exaggerated and therefore unreliable. And this tends to make people sceptical of some of the research reports.
By saying that 50 percent is the national prevalence of FGM, Professor Onadeko suggests that half of the women in Nigeria undergo this practice, which is quiet disputable as many communities in Nigeria do not engage in this harmful practice, and may not even be aware that it is one that still takes place elsewhere in the country.
If that were to be the case, by extrapolation the victims of FGM should be found in practically every household, an unlikely development.  
This is obviously and exaggerated figure, though that is not to say that in some places, particularly in the rural areas of some regions of the country, the practice has been wiped out completely.
To be sure, even a single harmful practice is one too many, and should be a source of worry that in this time and age women and young girls are still forced to go through this gender-based violence, which ultimately affects their health and impacts on their lives.
The communities that have been identified in surveys as still practising it should have the benefit of information regarding its harmful effects, not just on the individuals involved but the entire community as well. The government and experts in the field need to provide such enlightenment with the cooperation of the traditional rulers and community elders.
Habits die hard, but with focused enlightenment and education generally, the harmful ones will be discarded.