‘FGM violates women’s rights’ (Women's Page 11)

Story: Lucy Adoma Yeboah (Saturday, September 20,2008)
The expression on the faces of a number of participants, mostly young people from various countries in Africa and a number of journalists who were attending a youth forum in Accra on September 18, changed to sorrow, fright and disbelief.
This was after the cries of a baby girl, who was undergoing Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) filled the atmosphere in a video footage shown to the participants.
The child, who was a toddler, had her tiny legs, arms and head held by adults and pinned to the ground while an elderly woman slashed her clitoris with a sharp instrument.
In addition, the baby, who was bleeding from the ‘operation’ and drenched in sweat, had already received terrible knife marks on her abdomen.
Reports from the World Health Organisation (WHO) indicate that an estimated three million girls are at risk of undergoing FGM annually in Africa while an estimated 100 to 140 million girls and women world-wide are currently living with the consequences of FGM.
The organisation describes FGM as procedures that intentionally alter or injure female genital organs for non-medical reasons. The procedure which has no health benefits for girls and women, could cause severe bleeding and problems of urinating, and later, potential childbirth complications resulting in deaths of new-born babies.
It says the practice is mostly carried out on young girls, sometimes between infancy and age 15. FGM is internationally recognised as a violation of the human rights of girls and women.
The practice involves the partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons.
It is mostly done traditionally by people who often play other central roles in communities, such as traditional birth attendants, and reflects deep-rooted sexual inequality between men and women and an extreme form of discrimination against women.
It also violates a person's rights to health, security and physical integrity, the right to be free from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, and the right to life when the procedure results in death.
Immediate complications can include severe pain, shock, haemorrhage (bleeding), tetanus or sepsis (bacterial infection), urine retention, open sores in the genital region and injury to nearby genital tissue.
Long-term consequences can include recurrent bladder and urinary tract infections, cysts and infertility, which can result in surgical operation. For example, the FGM procedure that seals or narrows a vaginal opening is surgically corrected to allow for smooth sexual intercourse and childbirth.
In Africa, about 92 million girls aged 10 years and above are estimated to have undergone FGM.
The practice is most common in the western, eastern, and north-eastern regions of Africa, as well as in some countries in Asia and the Middle East, and among certain immigrant communities in North America and Europe.
The effects of the practice and the need to mount intensive education to discourage it engaged the attention of the Inter-African Committee on Harmful Traditional Practices (IAA), an international non-profit making, non-governmental organisation, at the two-day forum.
The Third Regional Youth Forum was held in co-operation with the Ghanaian Association of Women’s Welfare (GAWW) to enable the participants deliberate on the fight against such practices.
Founded in 1984 in Dakar, Senegal, IAC was the first and largest NGO network in Africa to take up the issue of FGM at the grassroots, regional and international levels.
Opening the forum, the Director of Operations of IAC, Dr Morissanda Kouyate, said February 6 had been declared International Day of Zero Tolerance for FGM, adding that it was important for the youth to take interest in the fight against the practice since some of them may in future be confronted with the issue of seeing their children going through the pain of genital mutilation.
In a speech read on her behalf, the Minister of Women and Children’s Affairs, Hajia Alima Mahama, said the percentage of females who underwent FGM in Ghana annually had reduced from 10 to five per cent but added that there was still the need to completely eradicate the practice.
For his part, the Deputy Representative of the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA) in Ghana, Mr Ian Mefarlane, said the organisation was committed to the total eradication of the practice because it affected every aspect of the mandate of the organisation, which included reproductive health and rights, gender equality and women’s empowerment as well as adolescent reproductive health.
The President of GAWW, Mrs Florence Ali, expressed her appreciation for the various initiatives by individuals and groups which help address FGM and called for sustained efforts to eradicate the harmful cultural practice.