Experts and Stakeholders in the health sector have all come out to condemn the practice of Female Genital Mutilation, describing it as satanic and the worst form of violation to the rights to be free from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, just as it was revealed it has cost over $1.4 billion in complications.
The was the position of the experts who gathered to mark the World FGM Day in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State capital, on Wednesday.
The lead speaker at the event, Dr. Dan Ukpong, revealed that FGM is practiced in about 30 countries of Africa, the Middle East and Asia and is always carried out on people between infancy and the age of 16.
He went on to reveal that more than $1.4 billion is spent annually to treat the complications that stems from the primitive practice.
The Guest Speaker, Dr. Charles Effiong, said the practice is the removal of external female genitalia, which has no health benefits but rather constitutes problems in urinating, cysts, menstrual difficulty, infections, complications in childbirth, and increased rate in newborn deaths.
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More than 230 million girls and women have undergone the FGM just because of the fear of not being rejected in the society, a believe that has sent many to their early graves, according to him.
Enumerating the impacts of FGM, Oslar Nyong of the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital, said apart from newborn deaths, FGM most times results in the need for later surgeries, psychological problems, depression, anxiety, post traumatic stress disorder, and low esteem.
Nyong noted that although those who persist in the practice are doing so because of social convention, governments at all levels and lawmakers should legislate on how to put an end to the primitive practice.
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