Shea butter
Perpetrators of human right violations, particularly Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), against women and girls, have devised new means of doing their abominable deeds. Instead of cutting, they rather use hot shea butter and oil to remove the clitoris of female children.
They rather pour hot shea butter oil on the baby’s clitoris, so that when she grows up, it will not be there as part of her genitals.
The calculated wickedness, which is being performed in the dark so that the offenders will go unpunished, has suddenly increased the number of cases reported on FGM in Ghana. Unfortunately, mothers are often the worst culprits and masterminds.
Mrs Gertrude Eunice Maasodong, President of the Ghanaian Association for Women’s Welfare (GAWW), disclosed this at advocacy and sensitisation programme at Kawukudi in Accra, last week.
The theme for the advocacy and sensitisation programme on the FGM, which is in partnership with United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), was “Supporting concrete actions at the grassroots to reach the goal of zero tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation.”
Mrs Maasodong further hinted that the GAWW is focusing its advocacy programmes in Zongos, because parents there are hauling their daughters secretly back to their villages to have their clitoris cut.
This is making the fight and elimination of FGM in modern day society difficult, as all these secret practices contributed to the UNICEF 2011 research findings of FGM upsurging from 3.4 percent to four.
“We realised that the thing is going on secretly. So we have to wake up again and do our sensitisation and advocacy programmes. They said we should start in the Zongos, because people travel with their customs.
“It is there some of the women said they took them back to their villages, did it to them, and brought them back,” she sadly said.
The UNPFA Deputy Representative, Ms Erika Goldson, reiterated the need for zero tolerance for FGM through translated political decisions that would lead to concrete actions at the grassroots by 2030.
The practice, which is prevalent in the Brong Ahafo, Volta and other three regions in the north of Ghana by some ethnic groups, is a dangerous cultural practice that affects girls.
She said: “Every culture is unique and serves as a means of identifying the place of its members in society. While we appreciate the way of life of every society, we must condemn practices that violate rights. Culture, like nature, is dynamic and changes to changing times.
“It is for this reason that we, as a matter of urgency, need to galvanise the efforts of traditional and opinion leaders at the grassroots to completely eradicate this harmful and degrading practice by 2030.”
A victim (name withheld), sharing her experience with the gathering, said for the past 10 years, she has not been able to sleep with her husband because the pain she experiences during the act is unbearable.
She added that her husband, as a result, has gone in for another wife, due to her inability to perform to satisfy her consummation role in the marriage.
She also counted of pain she underwent to deliver her six children, all females, and ensured that none of them had FGM performed on her.
Sharing her experience, she said: “Before FGM is performed on you, five grownups – one will sit on your breast area while the others would hold tight your arms and legs open, and a razor will be used in cutting the clitoris. My sister, it a painful thing to happen to anyone.
“In my case, our village chief outlawed the practice, so five of us were taken to the farm for FGM to be performed on us. One of the girls, who was a bit older than us, fainted and was hospitalised.”
As the barbaric act that has resulted in her not to have sexual ‘feelings’, she promised to report anyone who will attempt the practice on any girl child to the relevant authorities.
