NOA, UNICEF take campaign against FGM, Essential family practices to Imo women Aug. Meeting

The National Orientation Agency (NOA) and UNICEF said the sensitisation campaign against Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting(FGM/C) and Essential Family practices to Women August meeting was to drive the messages to the grassroots.

Mr Chigozie Ojiaku, NOA/UNICEF Desk Officer said this at the FGM/C sensitisation programme with the Christian Women Organisation (CWO) of St Anthony Catholic Church Umunnam, Atta-Njaba LGA of Imo held at the Church on Sunday as part of the women’s August meeting.

Ojiaku said the women August Meeting provided a good opportunity to interact with the women at the grassroots to drive home the ills of FGM/C and the need for them to imbibe the five essential family practices.

He identified the Essential family practices to include exclusive child breast feeding for upwards of six months, regular hand washing with soap, antenatal care for pregnant mothers, and fight against open defecation.

He also advised the women to observe proper hygiene at home and the COVID-19 protocols of regular hand washing, wearing of face mask and social distancing to wage off the Delta variant of COVID-19.

Mrs Nkechi Onunwa, Chief Orientation and Mobilisation Officer, NOA enumerated some of the benefits of exclusive bresst feeding to both mother and child saying it brings a special bond between mother and child and makes a child look healthier.

She advised women to quide against all forms of FGM including massaging a girl child private part with hand, vaseline, or hot palm nut saying that all these practices are against the law while anyone found indulging in them would be prosecuted.

She urged the women to allow the girl child to be as her God has created her adding that most women who pass through FGM/C experience a lot of disadvantages when they marry, and during child birth.

Mrs Ijeoma Ugwuegbu, President CWO of St Anthony Catholic Church Umunnam Atta- Njaba lauded NOA and UNICEF for the sensitisatiom campaign and promised to take the message to other women in the rural area.

She said the August meeting is a time women in the village and in Diaspora gather to deliberate on the way forward for women.

Most of the women testified to the benefits of exclusive breast feeding on their children and promised to continue to abide by the NOA/ UNICEF sponsored messages.