Paramount Chief of Sirigu, Naba Atogudeya Roland Akwara III has applauded Afrikids Ghana for their role in bringing to an end the practice of killing babies born with specialities of abnormalities, deemed to be spirit children.
The phenomenon, reports say has been until recently an acceptable practice in the area where the ‘spirit children’ are taken to a designated mountain and left there to die.
At the 20th anniversary and launch of a five year strategic plan by Afrikds Ghana, Naba Atogudeya Roland Akwara III noted that the NGO has significantly impacted the lives of the people in that area including bringing an end to the spirit child phenomenon.
“We are happy that Afrikids started in Sirigu because it helped us address harmful practices. For instance, we used to practice FGM but it is no longer cut the sweetest part of a woman because of Afrikids. They have supported many people in the community in terms of their businesses, in terms of education and the last thing is the spirit child phenomenon,” he said.
“We used to call them dwarfs, that’s when the child is born with some abnormalities, we take you there and put stones on you for you to struggle and die but for the intervention of Afrikids, that is no longer being practiced,” he added.
Apart from the spirit children phenomenon, Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), another abhorred practice that has taken years of advocacy is no longer being practiced in Sirigu.
FGM involves the partial or total removal of the external part of the clitoris and/or its prepuce (clitoral hood) and sometimes the excision of the external part of the clitoris and labia minora which are partially or totally removed, with or without excision of the labia majora.
Globally, three million girls are at risk of female genital mutilation (FGM) and an estimated 200 million girls and women in the world have undergone FGM. The overall prevalence of FGM in Ghana is 4%.
It is on this score that the Paramount Chief of Sirigu, Naba Atogudeya Roland Akwara III on Thursday, September 8, 2022, expressed gratitude to Afrikids Ghana for the enormous effort in ending the spirit children’s phenomena and female genital mutilation.
