By Chinwe Onwosi
Center for Social Value and Early Childhood Development (CESVED) has enjoined Journalist in the state to use their influence in the fight against Female Genital Mutilation so as to end it while enumerating its plans to train medical practitioners, establish Nfgm school clubs and organize Nfgm football Competitions in Ebonyi state
The president of CESVED, Mrs. Gift Augustine Abu made this known in a chat with Journalists during a two days training of Journalists on campaign to end FGM/cutting, held at Salt Lake Hotel Abakaliki. On September 4, 2020.
Mrs gift said that the aim of the training was to help the journalists know how to end the act through their different media platforms, as media workers are veritable tools in the campaign to end Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting in Ebonyi State and other parts of the world is the power house that can pull issues and straighten them.
She hammered on the need for journalists to know the right words to use while sensitizing the public on the act, noting that FGM is a culture we have to respect in as much as it has to end.
The president opined that the different strategies used by CESVED to sensitize on the dangers of FGM would help the younger ones know the harmful effect, because the younger ones have the power to change the things happening around FGM in their communities.
Mrs Abu said meetings have been had with the commissioner for Education on the need to inculcated NFGM into the school curriculum where they can discuss female genital mutilation just like every other subject in school so that the health implications that follows after the act can be understood by the younger generation.
In his address at the training, the Chairman, Board of Trustees of CESVED, Chief Augustine Enyi noted that though some tradition and religious preachers who believe in the practice baselessly trace FGM/C to the time of Adam and Eve and others to tradition, there was not medical prove or justification for such inhuman practice to continue.
He called on journalists to use their various platforms to sensitize Ebonyians, especially the rural dwellers on the harmful effects of FGM/Cutting.
In a paper presentation, Mr. Chika Igwe of Ebonyi Broadcasting Corporation explained that FGM has caused more harm to the female forks, hence the need for all stakeholders especially the media to add more efforts to ensure that the practice becomes a thing of the past.
Mr. Igwe enumerated different types of FGM/Cutting and their various negative implications.
Other speakers stressed the need for journalists who are carriers of information to develop passion and actively get involved in all activities that will not only reduce female genital mutilation, but totally end the practice in the State.
Participants who were drawn from both broadcast and print, all pledged to use their various media platforms to sensitize their audience on the negative effects of FGM and the need to put a stop to it.
