•By Halimah Olamide
Stakeholders at the 14th day of the Wole Soyinka Center for Investigative Journalism 16- Day Activism Against Gender-Based Violence, have identified various forms of unhealthy traditional practices and have proferred solutions to eliminate them.
The online event which was hosted on X, was themed: “Harmful Traditional Practices – Old Habits, New Trends!”
Among the line of panelists were Chairman, Police Service Commission, Solomon Arase, Chief Consultant OBGYN, Maitama District Hospital, Philips Uche Egbe, Senior Correspondent, NTA, Fortunate Ozo, and the Executive Director, Illuminate Nigeria, Anike-ade Funke Treasure.
Harmful traditional practices (HTPs) as defined by the United Nations are cultural practices, which are passed across generations and are harmful to an individual both physically and psychologically and are highly implicated in women and girls.
Some of these HTPs include female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C), forced feeding of women, early marriage, the various taboos or practices, which prevent women from controlling their own fertility, nutritional taboos and traditional birth practices, son preference and its implications for the status of the girl child, female infanticide, early pregnancy, and dowry price.
However, Ozo in her remark gave a personal insight on receiving a report of a woman forced to take her oath due to her husband being ill in which he died shortly after and she was thrown out to the streets while pregnant, in which she later delivered twins.
She highlighted the trauma which some women go through mentally, emotionally and even physically in the hands of these harmful traditional practices.
“Most of them lose their places of residence, they don’t east they are supposed to.
“They are also exposed to health hazards.”
Additionally, she added that families often time put up a nonchalant attitude towards the welfare of their daughters while married which may be a factor as to why cases like HTPs may reoccur.
“Most times, why these kind of thing proliferates is because these families that are giving out their daughters have this lackadaisical attitude.”
She however urged the necessary bodies and authorities to collectively unite so as to put an end to these harmful practices.
Funke-Treasure, noted in her statement that while there is a law regarding issues like this, there is a need to enforce these laws to ensure proper effectiveness.
“The government of Nigeria has done a lot, we have a law regarding
“We should begin to talk about enforcement, we should talk about personal paid announcements where we create stories around this and we go into partnership with tv and radio stations so that the right view are reinforced by the media.
“It’s cultural beliefs that have been handed over from generation to generation but that culture or belief is dying by the day, however it is still upheld in some families
“It is not a cultural belief that is limited to the African communities, it is practiced across cultures.” She said.
According to National Institutes of Health (NIH), close to 3.1 million girls undergo female genital cutting (FGC) every year. FGC has a prevalence rate of 41% among Nigerian women aged 15–45 years.
As regard early marriage, while more women are marrying in their thirties in developed countries, 20%–50% of women are married by the age of 18 in developing world and in Nigeria, 24.4% of girls between the ages of 15 and 19 years are married.