Stakeholders Charged to Eradicate FGM
Yinka Kolawole
Civil society organisations and media practitioners have been charged to step up their advocacy to end the practice of female genital mutilation in Osun State.
The circumcision of the female girls became illegal and punishable under Section 335, the Criminal Code of Osun State which stated that any person who is guilty of the felony is liable to imprisonment for seven years.
To have zero practice of female genital mutilation in all 30 LGAs and one Area Office of Osun, Hacey Health Initiative organised a three-day of capacity building workshop for stakeholders on Female Genital Mutilation, Policies, and Laws in Osogbo, Osun State capital.
Speaking at the workshop, Director of Legal Drafting, Ministry of Justice, Osun State, Barrister Kayode Titiloye, said that female genital mutilation or cutting is grievous bodily harm to the private part of the victim that is against the consent of the victim.
Titiloye further said that the Osun State law for the prohibition of female genital mutilation makes it a crime to submit self for female genital mutilation in the state.
He called for the amendment of the Law of Osun State to compel the health workers, public officials, traditional rulers, and religious leaders that discover the mutilation of a child or a woman to report it officially.
“The Osun Law for the Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation makes it a crime to submit yourself for female genital mutilation or courting and anybody who perpetuates such on a minor commits also an offense under the law.
“The justice sector is ready. But the enforcement is the challenge we have with the law because of a cultural orientation of not reporting our neighbours or community orientation of not indicting our neighbours especially you see that the perpetrator of FGM either grandfather, grandmother, father, mother, uncles, aunties, somebody, the family or the community,” he said
The representative of the Hacey Health Initiative, Mr. Ayo Alabi disclosed that the workshop was organised to build the capacity of a lot of people in the society to eradicate the practice of female genital mutilation of which the workshop was equally took place in Osun, Oyo and Ekiti states.
Alabi stressed that the organisers are trying to build a collaborative effort with government officials, NGOs, Civil Societies Organisations, and media practitioners to ensure that stakeholders reduce the prevalence of FGM.
He commended the residents of the state for their robotic support to eradicate the practice, saying the practice is drastically reduced across the state.
“We have trained over a thousand persons from the political offices, the local government chairmen, the counsellors or the political office holders in the rural areas, and the community leaders and the markets woman,” he said.
One of the participants from the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Affairs in the state, Mrs. Oluwatoyin Oyetola described the workshop as an enlightenment programme to know the negative effects of FGM to women.
