CLOSING THE CURTAINS ON FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION IN GHANA: THE TRIUMPH OF THE GIRL –CHILD

Otiko Djaba, Minister of Gender and Social Protection

By Dora Addy

According to information released by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), about 1.3 million Ghanaian girls have undergone female genital mutilation (FGM). Also, some 60% of women between ages 45-49 have endured FGM, whilst girls between 15-19 years have undergone the operation.

One of the remarkable news for young women residing in the rural areas, and even many in urban regions, who are deeply rooted in cultural beliefs pertaining to chastity as a strong emblem of feminine virtue, is that, they have less need to live in fear. Many upcoming young women can now live life happily, knowing that they will be able to enjoy a youthful life, devoid of any cultural inhibitions that go a long way to impede on their human and sexual rights as women.

More than ever, what used to exist as a worrying cultural practice in Ghana is slowly being reserved for the archives, while strong efforts are being made to erase the worrying traditional custom, most practiced among the peoples of the northern regions in Ghana.

Sometime ago, when the country globally gained notoriety for female genital mutilation (FGM), it looked like custom could not be done away with. The locals were furious; it was going to be an infringement on their traditional rights. They would usually fume at the call to close the practice, not giving a minute’s care about the young girls who risked the crude surgical operation just to keep their purity.

Their health was at risk, and death was not always far away. Throughout its many years of practice in Ghana, many untold stories have gone by. The young victims were either too afraid to speak out, or they were not allowed to say anything at all.

Still constant calls and hammering on the topic for abolishment was rampant. The messages spread through the national airwaves, and into the minds of the stoics of traditions who stubbornly held on to the practice in the manner of a hungry child to his food.

In the dark days gone by, female genital mutilation (FGM) has enjoyed a lot of attention; pompously parading itself to the frightful young women and children who stood there helplessly as they were given a crude and quick surgery of the genitals within their screaming confines- there were no anesthetics to numb the pain.

The harrowing experiences of young women and children over the years still could not solve the problem of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and teenage pregnancy, as had been presumed to halt some of these social problems among women. Rather, a downward spiraling of the young female generation in the northern regions in Ghana has characterized the female sect in affected regions in the North.

Instead of looking at the problem from a whole unique dimension, many of the elders have rather wrongly asserted that sexual mishaps among their young women is only as a result of over adventure in an early age, hence the need to severe the young women’s over-indulgence in sex at an early age.

MISSING THE REAL POINTS

Putting real value on some of the difficult challenges facing the peoples in the northern regions of Ghana, many young girls would have been saved from the gruesome and life-threatening operations they have had to endure.

Already earmarked as Ghana’s poorest regions among the others, the three northern regions are still struggling to come out of obscurity. There have been several interventions, but the regions still look to be slow in catching up with the other regions. Human development is still slow, although these areas provide the huge abundance of national food supplies.

Climate change in the North is also causing many farmers to abandon their fields in search of other jobs. The yields are lower. The climate is fast changing financial conditions of farmers, and they look on helplessly. At most they try to resort to other modern means to keep their crops, but some of these methods as irrigation, comes at no small cost.

Poverty is a causative agent to many of the early sexual activities among young women in the northern regions. A lot still live below the poverty line, unable to afford three square meals a day. Not many can choose what to eat in the northern regions of Ghana, let alone have the opportunity to eat well.

Still, access to education needs improvement, and even before, it was worse. How were people going to understand the detriments of FGM, let alone what good education could do to solve their problems? Still not exposed to the right information, many have rather died from excessive bleeding from the operation, while others have been exposed to sexually transmitted diseases through the unsterilized tools for these operations.

The problems among these people have not changed, because girls are still being given to early marriage. Traditional beliefs coupled with poverty are driving many young women into the arms of elderly men who can only be fathers to these women.

Many have a poor outlook on life. The future looks bleak for many, while the daring ones would brave a life in the city down south. Although this adventure does not always turn out as planned, many more will still risk having an opportunity of city life, only compounding the problem of sexual health dangers among young women in the north.

Parents leave their young girls to fend for themselves as soon as they bud into adolescence. They are thought of as ‘old enough’ to fend for themselves, instead of being shielded from the pervasive environment that draws them into promiscuity.

THE BURNING EMBERS

Sad enough, some health officials have also been reported to carry out the operations, while 89% of the surgeries were done by traditional practitioners.

It is not enough to say that many young women in the North have been traumatized and scarred for life. They also cannot enjoy their marital lives as they ought to; they have become as slaves to their marriages, only seeing the sexual experience as a chore, and not something to be enjoyed.

Some communities are still practicing female genital mutilation (FGM) although Act 484 of the 1994 Criminal Code makes the practice a punishable offense by a three-year jail sentence.

Still some communities in the north, specifically the Upper East Region and Upper West, are said to be in practice. The Mognori, Mandago, Bardo, Widana and Waanre in the Pusiga and Bawku Districts still hail female genital mutilation.

In these communities, people still believe that young women and children should undergo the operation to have their clitoris removed for non-health reasons, because it would consequently prevent adultery in marriage, while increasing their chances of getting married because they would remain faithful to their spouses.

The belief that the practice also prevents infant mortality and other diseases of the clitoris is another barrier that is making the custom difficult to break among the peoples in the North.

LOOKING FORWARD WITH HOPE

Some 125 million young girls have undergone the practice worldwide, and more women are prone to undergo the custom every year.

Action Aid Ghana (AAG) reports in 2015 say that some Ghanaians are firmly holding on to their beliefs in FGM and are travelling to other African countries as Burkina Faso and Togo, to have their children undergo the surgery. Using other routes, is in a bid to escape punishments that FGM attracts in Ghana, as provided by the FGM Law (Act 484) which provides that ‘whoever excises, infibulates or otherwise mutilates the whole or part of the labia minora, labia majora and the clitoris of another person commits an offence and shall be guilty of a second degree felony, and liable on conviction to imprisonment of not less than three years.’

Ghana has ratified the UN Resolution 67/146, on FGM elimination, and the Criminal Code Amendment Act 2007 is also helping by dealing with offenders of the act.

The UNICEF say that still, 13% support the practice while some 2% favor the custom, in a 2013 survey conducted.

It is hoped that the act will be eradicated soon. But now, young women who have undergone the practice are showing the way forward; they are acting as ambassadors in their communities and advising strongly against it.

For now work would still need to progress against FGM; the laws must be strongly enforced and criminal charges must be duly. Customs and traditions can no longer be allowed to exist, where human and health costs are involved.