Nigeria: UN Women Frowns At High Rate Of Female Genital Mutilation

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By;   MATTHEW  UKACHUNWA, Lagos
Female genital mutilation (FGM) is still high among the Yoruba and Fulani people of Nigeria.  A UN Women’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) data analysis fact sheet on Sub-Saharan Africa disclosed this fact.
‘Wealth, location, and race compound to determine prevalence of FMG in Nigeria,”  UN Women explained.
In Nigeria, the organization continued, women in the  women in the richest households and urban areas are more likely to be cut (42..3 per cent and 45.7 per cent, respectively) than in than poorest and rural households (28.4 per cent and 33.6 per cent, respectively, the advocacy group pointed out.
Yoruba women are 2.7 times as likely to undergo the practice as Fulani women (69.8 per cent and 26.3 per cent, respectively), the international promotional pressure group said.
The UN Women Fact Sheet on sub-Saharan Africa contained goal-by-goal new data analysis that put a spotlight on gender-based discrimination across all the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals.
UN Women also discovered in its review of SDGs that globally, 750 million women and girls were married before the age of 18n and at least 20 million women and girls  in 30 countries have undergone female genital mutilation.
As UN Women declared, “In sub-Saharan Africa, 37 per cent of women aged 20 to 24 were married or in union before the vage of 18.”
The organization reported thast based on data from 45 countries, moistly in sub-Saharan African, only 52 per cent of women aged between 15-49 who are married or in union make their own informed decisions about sexual relations and the use of contraceptives and health services.
Un Women regretted that in this modern technological age, the benefits of technology are accessible to men at a much higher rate than women, leaving women behind in internet access and mobile phone ownership.
The group criticized the state of affairs in which ‘women are less likely than men to own a mobile phone, and their internet usage is 5.9 per percentage points lower than that of men.”
Specifically, the fact sheet disclosed that in sub-Saharan Africa, 24.6 per cent of men use the internet, compared to just 18.4 per cent of women.
“The 2030 Agenda promises to put an end to barriers that prevent women and girls from realizing their full potential.  But significant challenges lie ahead,” UN Women said after reviewing the gender equality goal of the SDGs.

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