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Society engaged in Female Genital Mutilation is a failure – Sheikh Nasir

A psychologist, Sheikh Abu Muhammed Abdul Nasir, says societies that still engage in Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) should consider themselves failures as far as bringing up their children to become responsible citizens is concerned. 

“Chastity under duress can no more be described as chastity but an abuse of the fundamental human rights of the victims, ” he said.

He made the remarks in an interview with the Ghanaian Times on Friday, about his concerns on why the practice though still prevalent was not being given the needed attention by the media, despite the fact that it was “deadly and unlawful”.

He was of the opinion that what every forward looking society needed to do was to focus on good sex education of their young ones which was more likely to make them appreciate the subject to do what was right, and that the media should lead the charge to constantly drum home the message.

Sheikh Nasir called on all well-meaning people also to be vigilant and report perpetrators of the act for punishment. 

He said when people were given the right education on why they have to lead a responsible sexual life, it was more worth celebrating as compared to forcibly denying them perpetual access to have the desire and also enjoy sex.

He said if those who carried out the act would be truthful to themselves, they know that it did not make women what they claimed was the objective, but were just hiding behind that thought to carry out what was in his view an inhumane practice to make them upright.

He said he had had the opportunity to interact with young people over the years as both a Psychologist and a Teacher and observed that many parents were not taking pains to train their children to do what was right. 

“They do not even make time to explain to them why they should not do this or that or explain the repercussions of their actions should they engage in them,” he said.

The Psychologist said a significant number of parents had not made their children their friends, and so even if they had any challenge, especially with their sexual lives, they were unable to approach them for guidance which was not good enough. 

He said what FGM did was to suppress what was natural in women and in the long term make sex undesirable to them, though sex was not meant to be enjoyed by only men but both a man and a woman and so the practice should not be encouraged “because that is not how God made it”. 

FROM DZIFA TETTEH TAY, TEMA

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