Residents of Osun State have been warned to desist from practising female genital mutilation.
A Gender and Development Specialist, Mrs Jane Agbakwuru-Nzenwa, gave the warning on Tuesday at a community dialogue to commemorate the International Day of Zero Tolerance on FGM in the state.
The dialogue was organized by the Value Female Network (a non-government organisation), in partnership with the United Nations Population Fund and Osun Government.
Agbakwuru-Nzenwa warned Osun residents about the existing legislation that criminalises Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in the state.
She said that FGM had been criminalised by a law of the state House of Assembly with the provision for a fine of half-a-million naira plus four to five years imprisonment.
She further said that the fine was compensation for an affected FGM victim.
Agbakwuru-Nzenwa said that parents that subject their children to FGM and those that encourage or force others to perform FGM on their children (like grandparents) are also guilty of committing a crime under the law.
She further said that hospitals that help parents to perform FGM on their children would equally be prosecuted and shut down, adding that medicalisation of FGM was also illegal.
Mrs Aduke Obelawo, the Osun state Lead for Inter African Committee on the Elimination of FGM, delivered a lecture on the negative impacts of FGM on women at the event.
Obelawo appealed to the participants to be champions of FGM eradication in the state.
The Gender Desk Officer, Osun Ministry of Woman and Children Affairs, in an address of welcome, said Osun used to have the highest prevalence of FGM in Nigeria.
Adewale said that through continuous and aggressive campaigns (in collaboration with partners), the state moved from 76.6 per cent in 2013, to 49.6 per cent in 2018.
She said the state was targeting zero cases of FGM by 2030.
She said that the community dialogue was a strategy to bring the locals on board so that they could help preach and spread the gospel of ending FGM in the state.
