The queen of the Ooni of Ife, Naomi Silekunola Ogunwusi, has spoken against the practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), describing it as a violation of women’s rights, The Nation report.
The queen was a keynote speaker and a royal mother of the day at the Zero Tolerance Day for FGM, which was organised by a Girls’ Rights Advocate and Executive Director of the Initiative For Girls’ Rights and Health Development, Ayodele Bello, at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ife.
Olori Ogunwusi, who strongly opposed FGM, said apart from the harmful effect of the practice, cutting off the female genital part is totally wrong “because every part of our body has its own special purpose assigned to it by the creator.”
According to her, female genital mutilation is never a solution to end promiscuity.
She said: “So, beheading one’s head is never the antidote for headache. Rather, children should be educated on sexual health and reproduction which is also one of the things IGRHD is focused on.”
Asking the victims of FGM to rise above the stigmatisation associated with the practice, she advised them to speak up in order to get help from organisations fighting the practice.
She also pledged her support for the campaign to end FGM in Nigeria, saying the advocacy against the practice would start from Ile-Ife.
In her address, the organiser of the event, Miss Bello, who planned the event to coincide with the annual conference of her youth led non-profit organisation, the Initiative for Girls’ Rights and Health Development, called for enforcement of law against FGM and domestication of Violence Against Persons Prohibition (VAPP) Act 2015 in Osun State.
