Identity and Dignity Rights
Threatened with Female Genital Mutilation
When family and community pressure is used to compel FGM
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10 minutes
The Situation
What They Said
“Every woman in our family has undergone this. It is who we are. If she refuses, she cannot be called one of us or be married in this community.”
A young woman or the parent of a girl is facing intense family and community pressure to submit to female genital mutilation — a practice still prevalent in several Nigerian states including Ebonyi, Imo, Ekiti, Osun, and parts of Delta and Cross River. The threat is framed not as violence but as belonging: refusal means social exclusion, unmarriageability, and rejection by the extended family. This framing is designed to make the practice feel inevitable and the resistance feel like a betrayal of identity. In reality, FGM is a criminal offence under Nigerian federal law and the laws of numerous states — the fact that it has been practised for generations does not make it legal, and the threat of social ostracism does not reduce the seriousness of the crime being planned.
The Fallacy
Tradition as Legal Immunity
The argument being made is that because a practice has always been done within a family or community, it is therefore acceptable and beyond legal challenge. This is the oldest and most dangerous form of circular reasoning in human rights violations: the practice defines the culture, and the culture legitimises the practice. Nigerian law explicitly rejects this logic. The VAPP 2015 was enacted precisely to criminalise harmful traditional practices — meaning the legislature was fully aware that cultural normalisation is how these practices survive, and chose to override that normalisation with criminal sanction. Ancestral continuity is not a defence to a criminal charge, and community belonging cannot be conditioned on a crime being committed against a person's body.
What the Law Says
Your Legal Foundation
Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act 2015
Section 6(3) — Female Genital Mutilation as Criminal Offence
“A person who performs female genital mutilation commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a term of imprisonment not exceeding four years or to a fine not exceeding N200,000 or both.”
VAPP Section 6(3) makes FGM a criminal offence — applicable to the person who performs it, and potentially to those who arrange, facilitate, or coerce a person to undergo it. Any family member or elder who organises, arranges accommodation for, or transports someone for FGM may be criminally liable as an accessory. The threat of exclusion used to compel submission does not change the criminal character of the act being planned.
Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act 2015
Sections 43-46 — Harmful Traditional Practices
“Any person who carries out harmful traditional practices on another commits an offence. Harmful traditional practices include any behaviour, attitude or practice which negatively affects the fundamental rights of women, girls, or any person.”
Sections 43 to 46 of VAPP treat FGM as part of a broader category of harmful traditional practices that are criminalised regardless of cultural normalisation. This means the law specifically anticipated that these practices would be defended on cultural grounds and foreclosed that defence. Anyone who subjects a person to a harmful traditional practice, regardless of community custom, commits a criminal offence under these sections.
Child Rights Act 2003
Section 11 — Right to Protection from Harmful Traditional Practices
“Every child is entitled to protection from all forms of physical and mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation including sexual abuse.”
Where the person threatened with FGM is under eighteen, the Child Rights Act provides additional protection as a child rights violation. The Act places the duty of protection on parents, guardians, and the state. A parent who arranges FGM for their child is not merely breaching a cultural norm — they are committing a criminal child rights violation. State authorities including the police and the Ministry of Women Affairs are empowered to intervene.
Ebonyi State Female Circumcision and Genital Mutilation (Prohibition) Law 2000; Cross River State Female Circumcision and Genital Mutilation (Prohibition) Law; Delta State Female Genital Mutilation (Prohibition) Law 2002
Various — State-Level FGM Prohibitions
“These state laws independently prohibit the practice of female genital mutilation and provide for criminal penalties on conviction.”
Several Nigerian states have enacted their own FGM prohibition laws in addition to VAPP. This means that in these states, there are two independent legal frameworks — federal and state — under which FGM is a criminal offence. The existence of customary law in a state does not override either the federal VAPP or these state-level prohibitions.
What Scripture Says
God's Word on This
Psalm 139:14 (NIV)
“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”
This verse declares that the human body as created is complete, intentional, and worthy of reverence. The theological implication is that no cultural rite or human tradition has the authority to 'correct' or 'complete' what God has declared wonderful. Practices that permanently alter or damage the body in the name of identity or marriageability cannot stand alongside a conviction that the body as created is already whole and good.
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What They'll Say Next
Common Counter-Arguments
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They might say: “She has agreed to it herself — it is her own choice. No one is forcing her.”
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They might say: “VAPP does not apply in this state — we operate under our customary law here, and customary law permits this practice.”
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