… says ‘my children and I are in grave danger back home’
. ‘My last child was born in 2017 in the US’
A housewife, Madam Joyce Adaego Orekoya, who fled her Lagos residence years back following what she described as incessant harassment and intimidation of her person and her three children by her family members in her village over traditional circumcision of her female children has finally spoken from her hideout.
The distraught Igbo woman, who hails from Mbutu-Ichi Village at Obingwa Local Government Area of Abia State, is now caught between two worlds and left in serious dilemma.
Mrs Orekoya is now caught between the world of her parents, where she is unprotected from female genital mutilation, and that of her village kinsmen, who are very hostile to her two female children whom she has been protecting from being “circumcised,” the euphemism for Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).
To worsen the matter, Mrs Joyce Adaego Orekoya, had been told by her husband to do something quickly and move fast or be ready to get divorce papers from him should her family go ahead to have their ways with performing the “circumcision rites” on their daughters.
Prior to her disappearance from her home, it was gathered that her two daughters had been facing incessant discrimination and social rejection from neighbours in Lagos, where she initially hid as their peers reportedly called them names for not being circumcised.
In an online chat with our Correspondent, Adaego who was still afraid to disclose her country of residence, said, “My husband and I have to do something fast to keep our daughters safe from getting circumcised. It is our collective responsibility.You see,I got married to a Yoruba man called Kayode Orekoya in 2011 in Lagos. We have three children together.Two girls and a boy. My village people (kinsmen) have a very strong tradition that makes it a must for all the female children to be circumcised. It is compulsory for them to undergo mutilation to prevent them from what they have chosen to call “freaking sexual arousals,” which was why I found it very difficult to get married to anyone in my town because I hate the process and rites.”
Speaking further, Adaego said, “The struggle started immediately I had my first child.The pressure continued when I had the second female child in 2017. They said I was toying with the wrath of our village deities and gods.Their pressure was no longer bearable as they kept calling me from the village to bring my children back for excruciating and damaging circumcision rites to be performed on them.The matter had become a war between my family members.I would not allow my children to perform the evil rites and tradition, as they had successfully done to me and other female children in our family when we were young at Aba and Owerri. It was a horrifying process and rites. It was life-threatening.
“My mother could not prevail upon them not to
carry out the rites so as not to incur the wrath of the deities and gods.We were eight in number from my father – two boys and the six girls who were compelled to go through the process.”
“In all, my husband was troubled as we moved from one location to another to escape from the reach of my family members who were trailing us. It only peaked when my husband threatened to divorce me.”
Joyce told our correspondent that her children too were traumatized as the whole thing appeared strange to them.
“The children kept asking questions at all times. Hence, we have to protect them from the prying eyes of my family members. My last child was born in 2017, here in the United States of America (USA),” she said.
A constitutional lawyer, Barrister Gabriel Giwa Amu, who spoke with our correspondent on the matter, said, “Genital mutilation of the girl child is a harmful practice that could endanger the lives of children, especially the female.There are very strong reasons to get them protected at all the time.
“I have heard people call them unprintable names. Some would say it makes them promiscuous, which I know could not be true.”
Gboyega Adeoye, an Evangelist cum social critic, also commented on the matter: “Female Genital Mutilation could lead to complications and the end result may not be palatable.We need to educate our people on the dangers inherent in this abuse for the sake of humanity. The unscientific tradition must be set aside and discarded,” he said.
