Healthcare workers including Community Health Promoters (CHPs) will be at the centre of government efforts to end Female Genital Mutilation.
In the renewed efforts, CHPs will not only be tasked with spreading information on hygiene and diseases such as TB, malaria and HIV but will have to incorporate anti-FGM messaging at the community level.
On the other hand, healthcare workers will be required to talk to women and girls who come to Antenatal clinics about the effects of the practice and hence become agents of change.
Midwives and nurses make up to 93 per cent of the health workforce hence it is believed that through their interactions with women, they can influence FGM decision-making.
Dr Edward Serem has said FGM is a cultural vice but has later health effects on the lives of the girls who undergo it.
Serem is the Head of the Maternal and Reproductive Health Division at the Ministry of Health.
Of greater concern is that as the government tightens its noose on the perpetrators, some families are now turning to healthcare workers to perform the cut.
“What we have done as a ministry is we have a training package first of all to sensitise the healthcare workers that this is wrong, two to make sure that they don’t get involved, three is to teach mothers that FGM is wrong,” Serem said.
Research conducted between 2020 and 2021 by the World Health Organisation in collaboration with the ministry and research partners in Guinea, Kenya and Somalia found healthcare workers can be effective change agents in ending FGM.
According to the anti-FGM board CEO Bernadette Loloju, each community has its own reason for continuing with the practice.
She underscored the need to involve religious leaders in the fight as some regions uphold the practice on religious grounds.
“For example the North Eastern region they believe it is religious practice so you see there you have to involve the religious leaders so it is taught at the Madrasa,” she said.
