The clamour for the control and the eradication of Female Genital Mutilation FGM) in Africa is still unlikely following the corruption and politics surrounding it.  FGM is an awkward cultural practice practiced by some African tribes performed on the girl child and women with hope to curtail their high sexual urge, promiscuity and to ensure easy and safe child birth.

Recent events in Nigeria show that children, especially the girl-child, are still subjected to some out-dated practices and traditions that threaten their right to development, protection and ultimately survival.

This is an unrestrained contravention of the International Child Rights Act adopted by Nigeria in 2003 to domesticate the convention on the Rights of the child. Despite the fact that very few states have passed it into law, it is still a daunting task fighting FGM in the South-South.

Much as this barbaric act is frowned at by medical and sex experts globally, Nigerians and some Africans who are still rooted deep in their cultural belief seem not to yield to the demand of World Health Organization’s call for stoppage. In Nigeria the spiritual attachment to it by the practitioners has made it impossible to eliminate, while some traditionalists believe that it will bring loss of cultural identity as well as loss of jobs for them. Not even the efforts of human right activists in the country, or the bill passed by National Assembly in 2015 had an effect as the traditional practitioners are adamant in keeping to their so called heritage and their jobs. For some girls and women in Nigeria, it turns out a helpless situation especially when families decide the fate of their grandchildren. Numerous cases abound both in time past and lately.

In a publication by Yusuf Odaudu dated July 7, 2017 captioned “Circumcise Your Daughter or We All Die!”. Therein, Yusuf wrote about a pathetic story of one Mr. Nwokoma Donald, a young Nigerian parent who is being hounded by his extended family for refusing to allow the circumcision of his daughter, an act that defies age-long tradition of the South-eastern part of the country. According to the reporter, Yusuf, who was a neighbour to Donald explained how Donald’s apartment was vandalised by his family members at about 11:40pm at No 7, Ikuomola Street, Cement Bus/stop, Dopemu, Lagos State with the aim of getting the little daughter genitally mutilated. Donald has, since then, resorted to moving his family around different locations for fear of being tracked down by these predators and to avoid further contacts and anything that might endanger his life and that of his family.

A petty trader in Oyo state, one of the south-west states with a high prevalence of female genital mutilation, Lamidi is adamant and convinced that a woman’s sexuality should be guided, tamed – or it might bring her downfall. “If it is not done, the girl will be promiscuous and her sexual urges will be too high that she will begin to sleep around,” Lamidi tells Sola Fagurosi of the OneLife Initiative for Human Development, a non-governmental organisation that campaigns against FGM. Unfortunately, Lamidi is not the only one who holds this view; it is the popular narrative of those in defence of mutilation.

In another development, a pregnant mother, named Abieyuwa Nwadiei, fled the shores of Nigeria with two of her daughters while the husband went into hiding with the remaining two girls for fear of the girls being genitally mutilated by family members. The husband and two other daughters finally fled the country for safety as a result of death threats from his tribal group for not complying with their traditional obligation. This was narrated by Oyemwen a close relative of Abieyuwa, who was of great help to her and her children at dugbe Ibadan where they sort refuge for some time before fleeing the country. She said Abieyuwa’s  father is currently being pressurised and threatened by the husband’s family from, Delta State to produce their daughters for FGM. The father, according to Oyemwen, has said’’ the earlier his daughter accepted to do their bidding, the better for her and the girls’’. He said no matter how long it takes, her husband’s tribe will keep searching for them to execute their traditional rites of FGM. They have the money and the network to achieve their plans. It was very easy to trace them everywhere they relocated to within the country in the past and this they have threatened to do and that when they eventually lay hold of them, they would execute their traditional rites.

According to Oyemwen, Abieyuwa was genitally mutilated before marriage as it was a prerequisite for every intended wife into the husband’s family. Although this was hidden from her until she became a victim February 2007. Even though she sought intervention from security operatives, they simply watered the matter down by saying it’s a family matter and did nothing about it.

The tribe came after her again when she started having children. This time around they were pestering her husband to submit his daughters willingly. This has been the case over the years until few years ago when they became more desperate claiming that his continuous refusal is offending their gods and bringing bad luck to their tribe. This time around they are ready to enforce it by any means even if it results in death of the victim. The situation is even worse by the fact that her husband’s father is one of the chiefs of the community. Despite the ban and campaigns against FGM, the perpetrators still keep having their way cheaply. Till date no single culprit has been prosecuted. Parents like Abieyuwa have to resort to fleeing the country to rescue their innocent daughters from tribal giants they cannot fight in their vulnerable capacity.

The sad experience of Abieyuwa and family is one that would elicit pity and rage to any sentient being. Pity in the sense that they, though innocent of the customs, has been frustrated out of their country of birth. Rage in the sense that it involves an innocent young girls whose only crime is that they were born girls.

Meantime, Abieyuwa and husband who perhaps, may have escaped the country of such ugly practice, is one among numerous African parents who are not relenting in seeking intervention to protect their rights and as well embark on sensitisation drive to stop the practice.

In another similar case published Chris Onuoha of Vanguard  dated April 27, 2018, one Hajarat Mudashir, who boldly resisted such dehumanizing act on her children after two of her female daughters were forcefully circumcised, she fled the country as an option to protect her right. According to her close relation in Nigeria, Temitope who spoke to our correspondent, Hajarat’s disappearance has become a serious worry to the family members who wants her children back for tribal mark right performance.

She said, Hajarat fled the country because her son and daughters were meant to go through another dehumanising act of facial skin cutting called ‘Tribal Mark’ ceremony. To her, it is an indelible crazy identity mark that has no bearing to either fortune or longevity.

She lamented that her two female children were forcefully abducted by their family member from school without their consent and genital mutilation was performed on them, leaving the children at serious health risk for months.

She said, “Hajarat Mudashir is a native of Ibadan town in Oyo State Nigeria. She is a 36 years old married mother of three children. She had fled her country home, Nigeria to escape an obnoxious and barbaric cultural practice in most African countries called female circumcision. Her ordeal was such a painful and unavoidable situation prevalent especially in the Southern part of Nigeria where Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is rampant and seen as traditional sanctity towards marriage.

Against her wish, her children were subjected to a dehumanising cultural practice of face cutting with sharp knife called (Traditional tribal mark) and female circumcision, meant to keep family lineage and culture. According to her, this infuriated Hajarat so much that she couldn’t bear it, hence, helpless. Her effort to seek intervention from security authority was to no avail as even the police and community leaders were mute over her appeal, calling it a family matter.

Hajarat, who was tricked into letting her two daughters go through genital mutilations without both she and her husband’s consent, watch the young lads pass through pains and agony at such tender age. She became stubborn over what she called a self-defence of human right infringement stemming from the act and warnings from family members to ostracise her or even kill her.

Narrating her experiences to her close confidant Temitope before fleeing and what she went through in Nigeria with her family for the fear of torture and physical abuse, Hajarat reveals, “My two female children were taken to the family shrine and have a traditional circumcision performed on them. They were just eight and six years old, poor little souls, they bled, they could not walk, they could not eat, they did not understand why such an act of cruelty will be sanctioned by their Grandpa. I took them to the hospital for treatment. I was depressed for days but the irony of it was that this act was perpetrated by my sister in-law under whose care the children were because my husband and I were not around,” says Hajarat. As her third child, was fingered to have his mandatory traditional tribal mark right performed, she objected and this resulted to the entire family calling her names with a threat to terminate her life saying she is going to bring shame and wrath of the gods to the family. In total fear and disillusionment with the society leaving her to her fate, she decided to flee the country to save her life and that of her children from such life threatening practice.

“When I informed my own parents about the issue, unfortunately they decided to stay out of it, because of threats from my husband family. I have received death threats including my parents too. The only option I have is to flee the country that has no protection for me.” Continuing, Hajarat laments, “I do not want my children to go through another circle of cruelty, which is bound to happen if we return to Nigeria. Because of the harm and torture my female children have suffered before on FGM operation and are likely to suffer when the mandatory tribal mark are cut on their face, I am afraid to go back to Nigeria to encounter such ordeal again in a society that care less about children’s welfare. My children and I have constantly lived in fear of   abduction, torture and even death.   The children belong to this family and I cannot change that, but I vowed not to let their faces be disfigured in the name of traditional customs from the father family`s tradition. This is what many families are passing through in Nigeria today. Most who do not have a voice have died while some are living in perpetual agony and disfigurement.” In most cases, many women are suffering similar case of childbirth problem and related cases caused by FGM operation while some have contacted chronic sickness through the practice.

According to a publication by Oluwaseun Akingboye on the 14th January, 2018 in The Gaurdian, in December, 2017, a middle-aged woman and mother of two, Mrs. Oluwakemisola Falade, passionately cried out for help. Falade, who lives in Ifira, Akoko South East council of Ondo State, was threatened with banishment by community youths and leaders for her refusal to allow a forcible circumcision of her two daughters. The disagreement with family elders, she recounted, started when her first daughter, who was born in 2008 clocked four and relatives reminded her of the cultural practice, which must be undertaken between the ages of six months and 10 years. She was summoned to a meeting by family elders in September last year and instructed to prepare her daughters for the custom by December.

“Much as we tried to educate and convince the elders and youths, our explanations fell on deaf ears, as they refused our request for our daughters to be exempted from the cultural practice,” she recalled. The Akoko community, despite international outcries against the cultural practice, threatened to attack and banish them, subjecting the victims to serial abuses and dehumanisation. Out of despair, the couple had no option than to concede to the community’s demands, though they knew it was an abuse of their daughters, womanhood and humanity at large. The parents of the five- and nine-year-old girls yielded to communal pressure because the appeal to the state government, Ministry of Women Affairs, CSOs and other humanitarians to come to their rescue was not heeded.

Nigerian government has a role to play in making sure that the laws already enacted which are not effectively functioning should prevail. As it stands today, many of these traditionalists still persists and have not been jailed for performing the act according to findings.