 Thanks for staying with us. Remember that yesterday we talked about female genital mutilation. Yesterday was actually the day, 6th of February, set aside by the United Nations for, as the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation. And I have joining me right now to discuss this, Victoria Augustine. She is an advocacy officer and is also a chapter leader, or change leader rather, with Unguvo Collective. Good morning and welcome to the program, Victoria. Good morning. Okay, let's start with the definition of female genital mutilation. Let's start with a description of what it is. Okay. So yes, about female genital mutilation, female genital mutilation is the procedure of procedures that involve injury or, like, altering the female genitalia. And this procedure is actually for non-medical reasons. And internationally and nationally, it is recognized as the violation of human rights and the integrity of women and girls. 200 girls, more than 200 girls and women, have undergone female genital mutilation. And in 2022, UDSS recorded Nigeria as the world's highest number of women, with the largest, third-world largest amount of women who have undergone FGM groupings, with 19.9 million survivors. Do you think that figure is accurate? Because if you think about what Nigeria and Nigerians believe, the belief system here puts female genital mutilation as a necessity, something that has to be done and all that, at least in the days before now. Do you think 19.0 million justifies what is, not justifies, is a good figure? Okay. I would say for statistics and looking at the survey they did, I would say at the time when it was done, it is actually, yes, might be accurate. Okay. Or close to that or just within imaginary. Okay. So why do you think that this is really important now to commemorate a day like this? Yesterday was 6th of February and it's set aside for marking that, that it should be zero tolerance to female genital mutilation. Why do you think it's very important? Okay. So like I explained earlier, female genital mutilation, it is actually disputed in cultural practices, right? And it has harmful effects on women, it has harmful effects on a sexual, productive health and infringes on our rights as women, as humans, right? And are general and well-being. So commemorating a day like yesterday being the 6th of February is really important to us as it's said that it sets aside to reflect on the journey towards eradication of female genital mutilation in Nigeria and around the globe. And it also is important because it helps us to know our mouths will not be achieved and we affirm our promise to combat this achievement. Okay. So far, since this thing was instituted, do you think it has had any impact on especially a society that, like Nigeria, do you think the female genital mutilation has gone down or it's still there? Okay. So according to studies, according to a news headline yesterday, I think from punchline, I went to it and they said there is actually a decline as it was 20 to 30 years back but it is still prevalent because people like domestic practices, right? Female genital mutilation is still widely practiced. So 20, 30 years back, it's like the change is there but we are not able to see it. So I want to say there's actually a really decline in female genital mutilation. Okay. And especially in Nigeria. I know that your organization that you work with and Google Collective, you've been having some collaborations and all that and how far have you gone, especially in interacting with things like bodies like Ministry of Women Affairs. Is that what they call it? Ministry of Women Affairs. Yes, Ministry of Women Affairs and other relevant ministries to make sure that this thing is given the voice that it requires. Okay. Yes. So that is actually the reason I started this campaign. So it will get to the Renewable Ministry of Women Affairs, the National Human Rights Commission and other relevant bodies including the Ampere and Nigeria Police Force, right? So at Google Collective, we are doing our best to make sure that we carry this message and the Ministry of Women Affairs, they are almost completely dead once. The thing is there is actually no recorded case of a perpetrator of female genital mutilation that has been brought to them. So we are working towards that. So you're working towards making sure that any parent that does this is jailed for mutilating their daughter. Yes. Wow. How come nobody is talking about the men? Men go through mutilation as it were as well. So why is it all right for the men and not for the women? Okay. For the women, you set a decision. That is why it is called female genital mutilation, right? For the men, medically, it is proven that circumcision has no medical effect on the men. It actually helps them to against prostrate cancer at an older age and some other health positions, right? But for the women, there is no medical backing for female genital mutilation. And it can actually not be compared to what is being done to the men because there are actually different categories of this female genital mutilation. But some of these traditional people give their reasons as it helps against promiscuity, so many reasons that they give for doing this kind of things. Are you debunking all of these ones that it is not true? Yes. I mean, you cannot say you mutilated a child to cut down on from being promiscuous. It doesn't like there is no medical backing. And so far, there has been no physical backing to that. That after mutilating a female genitalia, it stops the female or the girl child from being promiscuous. Those are just, those are fallacies, those are myths and misconceptions that we are actually trying and working towards to demystify, to debunk those myths. May I be a little bit personal right now? Did you suffer the genital mutilation or do you know someone who did? Personally, I have not explicitly survived the genital mutilation, but I know someone, I have met a couple of persons who underwent female genital mutilation and I have experienced it during my service here and it was what she, it was what motivated me to start this campaign in Google Collective because I witnessed a child being mutilated. Oh, okay. But you, that means you know, you know people who were not mutilated and those who were mutilated. Have you seen any change or any difference rather in their behaviors, especially their sexual behaviors that will give credence to what the people who do this believe? Yeah, that's, I actually talk earlier on the types of female genital mutilation, right? And some persons who, in their central behavior, there might be differences depending on the kind of mutilation that was carried out of them. Okay, let's go back to what your campaign is all about. Your campaign with this Google Collective is you're calling on the Ministry of Women Affairs, the police force as well and other relevant authorities to implement the section of the VAPP Act. So let us know what this VAPP Act is or VAP Act, I don't know how you call it, but let's know what the provisions are that you want implemented. Okay, so the VAPP Act, it's called the VAPP Act, it's the Violent Against Persons Prohibition Act and it was enacted in 2015 by the National Assembly. And it was passed to become a law by the president who was not in the National Act, the president at the time in Nigeria. So the goal of that act is to eliminate violence in public, private life, prohibit all forms of violence against persons and provide maximum protection and effective remedies for victims and also punish offenders, right? So that VAPP Act was actually enacted as a result of many agenda-based violence and human rights abuses that was happening in Nigeria. So including rape, spousal maybe, post-collegiation, isolation and all of those things. So that was why. And the section of the VAPP Act that talks about criminal genital isolation, although it did not explicitly provide a clear definition of FGM, right? But sexual services of the VAPP Act talked about prohibiting FGM. It also criminalized, criminalized the act of engaging in female genital mutilation. And not just, we don't have just the VAPP Act, we have the Child Rights Act of 2003 and we have also the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria, federal public of Nigeria. And we all agree in Nigeria, the constitution is the supreme law of the land. And all these laws put together speak against any form of inhuman search, torture, degrazing treatment or punishment, right? So the thing is, I specifically talk, I'm talking about the National Human Rights Commission, the Ministry of Women Actors and also the police force. So far, like I said earlier, there has been no arrests of any perpetrator. It doesn't mean that we, people are not committed to crime of human genital mutilation. It is happening, it is happening, right? But most types, when some persons that have spoken to them, they tell you that when they go to these authorities to report this crime of female genital mutilation, they get stories like it's the cultural matter, it's the family matter, you're not supposed to interfere and all of those things. So my campaign is to call on this relevant police to make sure that perpetrators are being approached to people. Well, that will be a very difficult thing, I know, because the person who undergoes this, undergoes it when she is still very young. Maybe she grows up to 20 years before she knows that it was her right that was taken away when she was just below one year old and all that. And reporting, my father did this or my mother did this 20 years ago, might be a difficult thing. So we should be looking at how to get this evangelism as it is to the grassroots. How do you intend to do that? How can it get to the local level so that the people get to know? Because if these things will change, it has to be at that local level, at the village level, not in towns. So how do you intend to take this message down there? Okay, so we cannot downplay the role of constant education, right? Like community engagement and education. We have to educate these people in rural areas, especially about the dangers of female genital discrimination. And that is something we are looking at as a local collective to disseminate this message in their local languages, because most of these people do not even understand our English language, do not understand English language. So we are looking to disseminate this information to their local languages, bring it down to their level. Consistently educating them, not just helping you, not like educating and leaving them and all of that. Constant education, continuous education is something that would work for the rural communities. Also, training of health care providers in these rural communities. Because the first time ever I was a teenager growing up, I experienced a genitalia being mutilated was a pharmacist, right? And the child was an adult's ex-child, and the child was being mutilated. I think one of the genitalia was being taken off. I was just a teenager growing up. So if we can do that, also why I was calling on the Minister of Women Affairs, trainings for health care personnel in these rural areas on the dangers and complications in both female genital mutilation and also a reporting channel. Okay. So we have like one minute to go, so just very fast. What can the people just do to help? Because the Minister of Women Affairs is the Ministry of Women Affairs. But the people are on ground. What can people, especially the ones watching now, how can we contribute to making sure that that message is gone to the grassroots as we want it? Okay. So how do we actually help is by I have a petition on change.org, on any female genital mutilation. So they can support by signing the petition and donating if they can so that it can get to a product audience and to the target stakeholders that are targeting for my campaign and also support, they can also support by reporting perpetrators of female genital mutilation to relevant authorities. And I believe that with collective efforts will actually meet a goal of achieving gender equality and elimination of female genital mutilation by 26 parents. Thank you very much. I hope it doesn't get to a point where we'll have to arrest the whole village because we all are guilty. Thank you, Victoria, for coming on the show and enlightening us on all these issues. Thank you so much. Thank you. We've been talking to Victoria Augustine, a change leader with Nguvo Collective. We'll take a short break now and return with our second hot topic. Stay with us.