Commonly known as female circumcision or female cutting, Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is a primitive and brutish practice which involves cutting off a part or all of the external genitalia of the female child. FGM is a crude surgery performed on the external genitalia of female children between the time of their birth and the age of puberty. Many times, it may be performed at the point of marriage rites. Although FGM is deemed culturally and religiously appropriate, it is undoubtedly, a harmful practice in predominantly patriarchal societies whose major reasons for FGM surround curbing the sexual desires of the female gender. FGM is mostly performed by elderly women or traditional midwives, but quite recently, health workers have taken over these surgical duties.'
Globally, the practise of FGM is more prevalent in certain areas than others. A United National Population Fund (UNFPA) report based on demographic and health surveys avers that in Nigeria, about 13% of performed FGMs are carried out by health workers.² Egypt has the highest mind-blowing prevalence of 38%. The statistics of FGM performance on women in Nigeria differs from state to state; but there is a concise estimation that the rate of occurrence of FGM with Nigerian women between the ages of 15 and 49 is 24.8%. Unarguably, the speculation that about Twenty Million Nigerian females have experienced FGM, which represents only ten percent of the what is experienced globally, cannot be overemphasized.³ Zones in
Nigeria with the highest FGM prevalence are South-East (49%) and South-West(42.5%). Osun State has the highest prevalence at 76.6%. North-East zone has the lowest prevalence (2.9%), while the State of Katsina has the lowest prevalence (0.1%)