World Anti-FGM Day held at Bawku

Bawku (U/E), Feb.06, GNA - This year's World anti-Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) Day has been held at Bawku in the Upper East Region with a call on the youth to lead the crusade against this obnoxious practice.

The Day, under the theme: "Youth in the Centre of Action in the Campaign Against FGM", was marked by a procession of school pupils, students and women through some principal streets in the Bawku township to drum home the message.

Commemorating the Day, Mrs. Florence Ali, President of Ghanaian Association for Women's Welfare (GAWW), who made the call, urged the youth to be inspired by the call for Zero Tolerance to FGM held at Addis Ababa in 2003.

She said the youth needed to be determined to free young girls from the dehumanising traditional cultural practices, which desecrate womanhood and violates the rights of the youth.

"The devastating effects of FGM on reproductive health and its psychological implications on womanhood should never be underestimated by any one since we do so at the peril of our lives," Mrs. Ali stressed. She added that the loss of self-esteem and death of women during child birth as a result of FGM have proved that the practice had also contributed to women being marginalized in the decision-making processes.

Mrs. Ali therefore, appealed to chiefs, opinion leaders and the law enforcement agencies to add FGM to their agenda in order to protect the youth from pain and torture.

She urged the youth to be determined in a resolute manner with one voice to eradicate FGM by the year 2010 as envisaged by the Inter-African Committee on Harmful Traditional Practices. The Bawku Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), Mr. Abdul-Rahman Gumah said the perpetrators of FGM have gone underground in practicing the crime, adding that victims as young as three days old were made to endure this dehumanising practice.

"Our people, especially in northern Ghana, still hide behind walls to take innocent girls through this cultural practice and others that impact negatively on the children's welfare," he noted. He said the authorities could only perform well in eradicating this practice only on the reliable information from the people in the communities.

He urged the youth to oppose such practices through persistent education in their communities as a way of deepening the awareness of people against FGM.

The Upper East Regional Girls' Education Co-ordinator, Madam Sylvia Samari, said a study by the Gender and Human Rights Documentation Centre stated that over 15 per cent of Ghanaian females underwent FGM before attaining the age of 1.

She said the practitioners most often used non-sterilized instruments to perform the circumcisions without precautions, which predisposed their victims to severe infections, including HIV/AIDS. She said some precious aspects of cultural traditions needed to be preserved whilst those examined and found to be harmful must be discarded.

The reigning Miss Africa Queen, Miss Monica Mbillah, said that the idea of FGM was to prevent promiscuity in the past achieved its aim in promoting moral uprightness but could not be sustained in contemporary days.

She noted that the increasing HIV/AIDS cases signified an uncontrolled trend in casual sex among the youth, though FGM was still in place.

Miss Mbillah said the time has arrived for society to take a decisive look at the practice of FGM in order to formulate new ideas in maintaining moral uprightness. She called for collective efforts to embark on regular education on sex to prevent people from luring women into casual sex to enable them to take pride in their virginity. 06 Feb. 07