3 million females at risk of being circumcised
According to the World Health Organisation, about three million girls and women are at risk of being subjected to female genital mutilation (FGM) yearly. It is also estimated that nearly 140 million girls and women in the world have undergone the painful ordeal already.
It is against this backdrop that the Ghana Association for Women Welfare (GAWW) and the Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairs is calling for stricter laws against the practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in Ghana.
Already, efforts are being intensified to end the practice as yesterday; February 06 was marked day of zero tolerance for FGM.
In Ghana, the practice is most common in the three northern regions. Bawku is considered one of the most endemic areas of FGM.
President of GAWW, Florence Ali, at a press conference to mark the zero tolerance for FGM day in Accra, said FGM could be eradicated through effective public education. She therefore solicited support from government, media and especially men to help end FGM.
She noted that FGM was a violation of human rights of women including the right to life, physical integrity to the highest attainable standard of health and freedom from mental violence and therefore called on law enforcement agencies to arrest perpetrators.
“The law enforcement agencies shouldn’t turn a blind eye to this thing when it comes to them because it is a very serious issue. We are talking of the human rights of somebody which is being trampled upon, [there is also] causing body harm to somebody… so they shouldn’t say that it is tradition,” she said.
According to Florence Ali, about six percent of nursery kids between the ages of two and five examined in the northern part of Ghana had been mutilated.
She added that because people are aware of the law criminalizing the act, they practice the illegal act in secret.
Jack Sabadu, a citizen of Bawku but resident in Switzerland also questioned the competence of the FGM Act passed in 2007. He said the Act had failed to bring sanctions against those engaged in the illegal act.
By: Aisha Ibrahim, e.tv Ghana
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