Survivors of Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C) in Abakaliki Local Government Area, Ebonyi State have called on government agencies and NGOs to ensure that the laws already available against perpetrators of FGM/C are implemented The Trumpet gathered.
They asked that penalties prescribed for those who undertake genital mutilation and the collaborators should be made to be relatively stiff for that to be able to serve as a deterrent to others.
The survivors, women and girls, randomly drawn from Abakaliki Council Area spoke to our Correspondent who was on facts finding on the situation as it concerns FGM/C in the Local Government Area. Nweke said that some others use warm water, and Vaseline jelly to mutilate their girls.
Another survivor; a JSS 1 student who merely gave her name as Joan said, she was forcefully cut at the age of 10 but that she had to invite their Village Head to stop her mother from cutting her younger sister because she was convinced of the dangers associated with the mutilation after she participated in a workshop in Abakaliki.
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An FGM Champion in the Nkaliki community, Mrs Helen Uwa said the Abakaliki Urban communities, more than those in the far-to-reach areas where their belief and traditional commitment to FGM/C is relatively lower.
Chief Emmanuel Nwangele, Chairman of the Abakaiki council said the council had at any chance spoken to their women, and traditional rulers on the dangers of FGM/C said it is drastically being reduced in the council area.
He noted that wife of the State Governor, MMrsRachel Umahi had taken on the fight against the FGM/C hence the council areas had replicated the campaigns in their Local Government Areas.
