By Ola Ajayi, Ibadan

The Executive Director, One Voice Initiative, for women empowerment in Africa, Omolara Olatunbosun has expressed concern over continued rise in female genital mutilation in the South West zone of the country despite public outcry against the act.

She said this while speaking with newsmen in Ibadan Wednesday.

Olatunbosun noted that the statistics that was recently released by the United Nations Children Education Fund, UNICEF that 60 percent of girls still undergo mutilation of their genitals in Oyo State under the guise of old-fashioned practice of female circumcision was worrisome.

While discussing the dangers that are associated with the primitive act, she gave a chilling account of how a baby girl bled to death three days after her mother made her go through the unbearable pains.

The CEO faulted the claims of those who cut female genitals and claim that it is their tradition to circumcise female child to prevent her from promiscuity saying various researchers have proved it wrong and established that the girls are prone to diseases, infertility and many other adverse effects.

The passionate woman said she would improve on public enlightenment which she kick-started from Egbeda Local Government noting that she would extend the advocacy to rural areas where the practice is more prevalent.

She also lamented that despite repeated advocacy against it, gender preference for male children and the undesirability of female children still persists in many parts of the world including African nations.
“From ante-natal to old age, different sets of violence are experienced by the girl child in Nigeria which could hinder them from attaining their full potentials and the story is the same all over Africa and some parts of the world.”

“As a result, some of the problems faced by the girl child from the ante-natal stage range from rejection to neglect, abuse, infanticide, female genital mutilation, child marriage, forced marriage, child sex, sex slavery, economically induced sex, exploitation and marginalisation”.

With the subsistence of all these challenges, she reasoned, that there is need to sensitize the public with its awareness and in togetherness proffer means to exterminate them for further development of our nations and for realisation of a fairer world,” she said.

On the abduction of Chibok girls, she urged the Federal Government to show more seriousness in freeing the girls from the captivity of the insurgents.

She listed some of the objectives of her non-governmental organisation as restoration of self dignity, lost hope, self respect and self worth to girls and women who have been victims of rape, teenage pregnancy, neglect and marginalisation which have resulted in low esteem, depression and truncated ambition.