By NAN
Agbaja Autonomous Community, Izzi Local Government Area, Ebonyi, has moved against Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).
The traditional rulers council of the Izzi clan established penalties against FGM.
A report by Plan International indicates that at least 200 million girls and women alive today have undergone a form of female genital mutilation (FGM). If current trends continue, 15 million additional girls between ages 15 and 19 will be subjected to it by 2030.
Female genital mutilation, also known as female circumcision, excision or genital cutting, comprises all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the genital organs for non-medical reasons, mostly carried out between infancy and age 15.
The Chairman of the council, Chief Emmanuel Nwojiji, said the decision was to ensure total compliance, adding that FGM is a practice that ought to be outlawed completely from the society.
Nwojiji made this known on Wednesday during an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on the functionality of the proscription earlier made by the custodians of culture in the area.
According to him, the penalty includes payment of N50,000 cash and other items.
He said steps had been made to enlighten people in churches, markets and community meetings on the sanctions and laws introduced against the act.
“At Amagu in Izzi, we have made people to know the harmful effects of the cutting and as well educate them that one can still fulfil the rite of womanhood without involving cutting.
“We have also constituted task force members who move from one house to another in ensuring that the act is eliminated in our community,” Nwojiji said.
He added that a seven-man committee was inaugurated to monitor adherence of the people over the prescription earlier made.
NAN also reports that the monitoring committee, which comprised traditional rulers, women leaders, youth leaders, school teachers and religious leaders, among others, will follow-up the proscription.
NAN also gathered that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Fistula Care Plus collaborated with Family Succor and Upliftment Foundation to push for FGM elimination in the community.
The foundation, a pet project of the wife of state governor, Mrs Rachael Umahi, organised the meeting to follow-up the public proscription.
The Country Project Manager of USAID, Mr Eyeme Efem, said that the partnering agencies came to ensure that the programmes were well inducted and to ascertain people’s adherence to the law. (NAN)