The continuous and damaging effects of female genital mutilation amongst the Igede people of Benue State are not just medical statistics but lived realities for girls and families who continue to face threats and violence for refusing the practice. Though Nigeria has outlawed female genital mutilation under the Violence Against Persons Prohibition Act of 2015, in many Igede communities of Oju and Obi Local Government Areas it is still defended as a compulsory rite of passage for a girl to be respected and marriageable, and the pressure to enforce it has become persistent and even violent.
This persistence is clearly seen in the case of Favour Livingstone Okpoto. Favour was born in Lagos on October 24, 2002 and grew up primarily in Lagos with frequent visits to her father’s village in Benue State. Her mother, Caroline Oluwakemi, did not initially understand the extent of female genital mutilation in her husband’s community until several years into her marriage when she came to know women and girls who had undergone the procedure and realized that members of her ex-husband’s family and the elders of the Igede community expected Favour to undergo it. Her concerns became reality during the traditional New Yam Festival in 2012 when she and her daughter were publicly attacked and assaulted because of their refusal to comply with the tribal expectation concerning her circumcision. Favour’s father tried to plead with the elders to reconsider but they would not listen and instead threatened him with being blacklisted by the tribe for not complying with their demands.
The situation did not end with that festival. In 2013 and 2014 two elders from the Igede community came to their home in Lagos with the intention of taking Favour to the village so that she could be circumcised. When her mother learned they had come to take her daughter she became frightened and quietly removed Favour from the house and kept her away until she believed the men had left because she feared they would take her by force. She also experienced verbal abuse and threats of being driven out of her matrimonial home for opposing the circumcision, and she came to understand that these were not empty disagreements about tradition but people who believed they had the authority to decide what would happen to her daughter regardless of her wishes as a mother.
This pattern of continuous harm mirrors findings from community research in Igede land, particularly in Ugengen community where 25.8 percent of respondents suffered severe bleeding as a result of the procedure, 15.8 percent had urinary retention due to pain and 18.3 percent had urinary tract infection after the procedure. Beyond immediate bleeding and infection that is often managed with herbs that fail to stop it, many women live with chronic pelvic and back pains, urinary stones and kidney damage, painful menstruation and severe complications during childbirth including prolonged labour and risk to mother and baby. The psychological damage is also continuous as girls live in fear of being taken by force, mothers live with fear of retaliation and families are torn apart with fathers caught between protecting their daughters and being ostracized and father-daughter relationships becoming strained as the pressure escalates.
Favour’s mother eventually made the difficult decision to get her daughter away from the environment where these threats existed because she became increasingly afraid she would not always be able to protect her given the influence of the elders and extended family. Even after Favour came to the United States and settled in Texas, members of her father’s family who do not know her physical address still know she is in Texas and continue to ask about her whereabouts with statements indicating they still want the issue of her circumcision addressed.
The Igede Agba New Yam Festival celebrated on the first Ihigile market day of September as thanksgiving to Ohe Oluhye and Ohe Oleji for a successful harvest should be a period of unity and thanksgiving with eating of pounded yam and resolution of misunderstandings. However for families like the Okpotos it has become a reminder of hostility and enforcement including female genital mutilation.
