Warns of health hazards of harmful cultural practice on 0-14-year girl-targets
The United Nation Emergency Fund, UNICEF has raised the alarm over female genital mutilation and cutting currently targeted at girl children between zero and 14 years.
UNICEF Chief of Field Office, Mrs. Juliet Chiluwe said despite the various advocacy programmes and awareness against the scourge, South East has remained one of the zones with the highest prevalence of the harmful practice.
Chiluwe said: “We still have unacceptable prevalence rates across the Southeast states, with Imo state ranking 1* at 38% prevalence among women aged 15-49 years and 9.7% prevalence among girls aged 0-14 years. Similarly, prevalence among women aged 15-49 years in Ebonyi, Abia, Enugu and Anambra states stands at 20.4%, 20.3%, 19% and 13.1% respectively. For girls aged 0-14 years, prevalence stands at 3.7%, 3.0%, 2.1% and 0.2% respectively for Enugu, Abia, Anambra and Ebonyi states.
As a result, Nigeria has been estimated to be ranking third globally in the harmful practice of Female Genital Mutilation and Cutting of female genitalia.
UNICEF made this disclosure during the zonal Media dialogue with journalists in Imo, Anambra, Enugu and Ebonyi State to mark the International Day of Zero Tolerance for female genital mutilation (FGM) in collaboration with Broadcast Corporation of Abia State, BCA, Umuahia.
Speaking in a media sensitisation dialogue, Dr. Chikezie Obasi attributed the proliferation of the harmful practices to lack of awareness and called for collective action to end the FGM/C.
Dr. Obasi who spoke on female genital mutilation practices and harmful effects attributed the practice to cultural belief all geared towards stopping female children from being promiscuous.
He said over 230 million girls’ genital organs have been mutilated without medical reason while and over $1.4b has been used to manage the complications from FGM/C.
“Nigeria ranks third in FGM survivors globally and it is estimated at 19.8 million women affected (UNICEF 2024),” Obasi lamented, adding that prevalence among women aged 15-49 dropped from 23% in 2013 to 20% in 2018 while FGM/C among girls aged 0-14 increased from 16.9% to 19.2% within the same period.
The guest lecturer further said FGM has no medical benefits but violates human rights and called on the media to escalate the information to help the society change the narrative.
Earlier in her address, the UNICEF Communication Officer, Field Office, Enugu, Mrs. Ijeoma Onuoha-Ogwe said the essence of the campaign was to hold dialogue with journalists in the South East to herald the 2025 FGM/C day, reinforcing media role in information sharing.
She said through the media, the zone will create adequate awareness towards the realisation of the objective of this year’s theme, “Stepping up peace, Strengthening Alliances and Building Movements to end FGM/C.
