Eleven years after Nigeria banned female genital mutilation, investigations by PUNCH HealthWise reveal that some families still subject baby girls to the harmful practice in secret, with grandmothers painfully pressing and massaging infants’ genitals using their thumbs, hot water, Vaseline, and ointments to “shrink” them. The practice, driven by deeply rooted cultural beliefs, exposes the children to trauma, infections, and abuse, JANET OGUNDEPO reports
Every morning and night, the cries of 33-year-old Ogechi Ndulaka’s newborn pierced the air during bath time. Bathing had become a ritual of pain for the infant, and her wails were a clear protest of what was being done to her.
Ndulaka’s newborn, Chiamaka, a name meaning God is good, soon became known among neighbours for the cries echoing through her parents’ two-bedroom apartment in Ogbor Hill, Aba, Abia State.
But behind those curtains, Chiamaka’s grandmother repeatedly pressed the infant’s clitoris with a Vaseline-coated thumb to reduce the size, insisting the baby girl’s clitoris must not be “left like that.”
For over a month, the infant endured the repeated pressing of her grandmother’s thumb against her clitoris and was finally free when the clitoris shrank to a size that satisfied the older woman.
