It is difficult for many of to imagine the need for a law banning female genital mutilation because it is unfathomable that someone would do such a thing or others would deem it acceptable. However, women living in countries like Nigeria have been living under the fear of something so gruesome their entire lives.

Fortunately, the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act 2015 was passed in the Senate on May 5th, but recently enacted into Nigerian law.

According to UNICEF:

“More than 130 million girls and women have experienced FGM/C in 29 countries in Africa and the Middle East where the practice is most common.”

With the help of community activism, campaigns and numbers of organizational efforts to end this practice, UNICEF reported that teenage girls were now one-third less likely to undergo FGM/C today than 30 years ago.

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Now with the new law criminalizing this procedure, the hope is the ban will fully eliminate this practice and be strongly enforced to combat any existing societal pressures.

The World Health Organization cites immediate harmful effects of FCM/C that include hemorrhage (bleeding), bacterial infection, open sores, and long-term consequences that include infertility, childbirth complications and recurring bladder infections.

In another UNICEF report, communities who practice FGM often do so to reduce sexual desire in women and to initiate girls to womanhood, among other purposes.

According to “The Guardian’s” analysis of 2014 UN data, a quarter of the women in Nigeria have undergone FGM.

Glad to hear the days are long gone women will have to live under this terror and no one pays the price for doing such a thing as female mutilation. Hopefully, this treatment will be banned forever and never practiced again.

SOUND OFF: What do you think of Nigeria finally banning female mutilation?

Source: Nigeria.aplus.com