Wife of the Imo State governor and chairperson of Southern Governors’ wives forum, Nneoma Nkechi Okorocha has expressed worries over the rampant practice of Female Genital Mutilation and cutting (FGM/C) among parents in the state. Mrs. Okorocha while raising the alarm over the inhuman treatment meted to young females lamented that such unhealthy entrenched culture had continued to deny women the right to sexual health, complications during childbirth in addition to a host of other medical complications including death in some cases. She dismissed the practice as a form of violence against women which was predicated on myth and superstition, stating that Imo had been discovered to have one of the highest prevalence of the practice which was 60 percent.
According to her, the intervention by the United Nations Population Fund Agency (UNFPA) through the state ministry of women affairs and social development had focused on four local government areas in the State including Ikeduru, Ohaji/Egbema, Ngor-Okpala and Oguta. “In spite of this intervention, it is noted that this practice is undertaken in our communities throughout the state and had been continuing unabated, parents especially mothers have been secretly indulging in the act leaving the victims in perpetual agony and regrets”, she stated.
