As Sierra Leone celebrates World AIDS Day, the Amazonian Initiative Movement Sierra Leone (AIM-SL) headed by Madam Rugiatu Neneh Turay has called on the Health Ministry to include Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in all its programmes.
The Executive Director of AIM-SL, Madam Rugiatu Neneh Koroma has informed that it is no hidden secret that FGM is one way HIV/AIDS is transferred to thousands of innocent women and girls.
Referencing health practitioners, Madam Turay said HIV/AIDS is transferred through piercing of the body tissues and blood transfusion from an infected person to healthy persons.
According to Madam Rugiatu Neneh Turay, this is exactly what is happening when women and girls are initiated into the female secrete society where FGM is performed.
AIM-SL, she said, is one of the leading End-FGM advocate organisations in Sierra Leone that has proffer a solution by introducing the bloodless rite of passage where women can go through the full tradition of Bondo or Sande without piercing of the body and shedding of blood.
Madam Turay said now it’s the time for government agencies to own this Alternative Rite’ (Bloodless Bondo) and help reduce not only HIV/AIDS but infant mortality, morbidity, early marriage, early school dropout rates and other social vices that militate against women and girls’ empowerment.
Madam Turay furthered that several researchers have proven that FGM often results in lifelong physical, psychological, and sexual trauma.
She maintained that the immediate effects of FGM are typically extreme pain and a life-threatening loss of blood.
“If several women and girls are cut with the same blade, there is a high risk of HIV and AIDS or hepatitis will be transmitted,” she said.
Long-term consequences include chronic pain and infections and sexual disorders as well as pain during sexual intercourse.
“Don’t tell me our great grandmothers and great grandmothers went through, and nothing happened to them,” she asserted.
In those days, Madam Turay said, there were no researches done to ascertain the causes of the unknown ailments amongst women, and most times, they did not access medical facilities.
She pointed out that, most deaths were attributed to either the will of God, witchcraft, juju or in the case of violent death or murder.
She revealed that now that things have changed, the modern lifestyle requires scientific interventions in cases of health and fatalities.
In this case, Madam Turay said that medical reviews and investigations have exposed the dangers associated with these practices of removal of very useful healthy tissues.
“The only thing that is constant about culture and tradition is that it is subject to changes. Why do you still want to promote and protect the cutting of the clitoris of women and girls in the name of a dangerously unnecessary cultural and traditional practice that has been condemned by the World Health Organisation (WHO)”
She concluded by appealing to “be a good parent to propagate the EndFGM, promote bloodless rites, and reduce HIV/AIDS amongst women and girls.”