PHOTO: Girls Alliance officials engaging the media
By Augustine Octavius, augustineoctavius@gmail.com
A teenage-based female organization, the Girls Alliance for Future Leaders is calling on President George Weah and the National Legislature to completely outlaw Female Genitals Mutilation (FGM) practice performed on all girls at the age of 18 and below in Liberia
The Advocacy Officer of the Alliance, Kiadatu Bah said there is a need for the government to make FGM a criminal offence for the perpetrators performing such practice on minors.
Miss Bah made the call at an engagement with the media by the Girls -Alliance for Future Leaders on all forms of gender-based violence in Monrovia during the weekend.
Miss Bah admonished the Liberian government to honor its obligations to a treaty and agreements that it has ratified over the years , which calls for the ban on female genitals mutilations.
Also speaking during the media engagement, Patricia Davies, the Secretary of the Girls Alliance for Future Leaders, disclosed that some of the young girls and women have experienced some effections and harms as a result of female genitals mutilations.
She appealed to lawmakers that the campaign to ban female genitals mutilation is not intended to denigrate the traditional practices of the tribal people but it is aimed at curbing the violations of the rights women and harms and effections created as a result of the mutilation.
According to her, once the genital of a woman is mutilated, she does not feel like a woman whenever she is having sex because what is supposed to make her feel that she is sexing is removed.
“This practice makes the woman not to feel that she is having sex because the feeling is not there, ”Miss Davies said; adding: “ most of the girls who have undergone female genitals mutilations said they do not enjoy making love because the part God placed there is removed.”
For her part, the Program Director of the alliance, Jeneba Karmo, made it clear that they are prepared to take their complaint about female genital mutilations against Liberia to the West African regional organization, ECOWAS, the continental body, the African Union and international partners such as the United Nations, the European Union and the donor community.
The Girls Alliance for Future Leaders Program Director also furthered that statistics have a lot of gap especially when it comes to the representation of women
She wants young ladies to encourage their mothers, sisters and guardians to register and vote in the presidential and legislative elections with agenda of increasing women’s representation in the Liberian Senate and the House of Representatives.
Responding to a question, the Media officer at the alliance, Seek Dorbor, said the female genitals mutilations have over the years denied some girls education through withholding for months.
“In some cases,” she went on, “they are forced to get married soon after leaving the traditional schools giving her to the man who sponsored her while she was there.”
According to her, it encourages prostitution because since the woman, who is circumcised does feel the impact of sex, it may make to have multiple sex before she can gets tire because it affects emotionally, physically and spiritually.
In 1979, specifically from July 17th to 20th, the assembly of heads of states of the Organization of African Unity, now the African Union, met at its 16th ordinary session in Monrovia, where the preliminary draft of what is now known as the African Chapter on Human and People’s Rights was produced for the sole purpose of protecting and promoting human and people’s rights.
Between April 7th to 9th in 1988, the OAU in its consultative meeting on the formation of Pan African Linguistic Association, held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in collaboration with the United Nations Children Fund, recommended, among other things, the African Chapter on the right of the child to which Liberia is a signatory.
Under Articles 32 and 33 of the African Chapter on Human Rights, any custom, tradition, cultural and or religious practice that is inconsistent with the rights, duties and obligations contained in the present chapter shall be discouraged.