Nigerian couple being forced to circumcise daughters aged 7 & 10 cry out for help

A couple in Warri, Delta State has raised alarm over alleged attempts by members of their family to forcibly mutilate the genitals of their three daughters.

Mr. Value Onehireba Ewansubhor, a former banker, and his wife, Ese Joy, in a statement, alleged they were under pressure by some people to have their 10-year-old eldest daughter and her twin sisters, aged seven, circumcised.

The couple said they had to bring the matter to the public domain after all attempts to resist the pressure proved abortive, believing that this might dissuade those allegedly pressurizing them from their hard line position on the matter.

“Since early 2017, some members of my wife’s family have been pressurizing us to release to them our three daughters, the eldest, aged 10 and the twins, who are now just 7 years plus, to have them circumcised.

I have done everything possible with my wife to get them to drop the idea but to no avail. They are bent on mutilating the girls’ genitals, insisting that it is the historical practice by which their people preserve their ladies, curtail their sexual arousal and keep them in check”.

“With their insistent and a threat recently to ensure that the three girls are circumcised, whether we like it or not, we are appealing to government and the general public to prevail on these people, some of whom are members of my wife’s family in Uvwie Local Government Area of Delta State, to leave the three children alone as we do not want them circumcised.

“Although we realise that this is an age-long standing tradition of large scale practice in Urhobo land, particularly in Uvwie Local Government Area of Delta State, where my wife hails from and one that has declined, if not completely phased out already in my own homeland of Esan in Edo State, we are by virtue of our religion and education not willing to make our children to go through the experience and insist that it is a tradition that should be put behind us in this age and times’.

The wife, Ese Joy Ewansubhor, a lawyer, who is into private practice in Warri, added:

“We don’t know what to do any more, we are forced to cry to the public as they have now resorted to threatening us, vowing that once it’s time to have the children circumcised, they know how to go about it to ensure that it is done.

We are scared and afraid that our daughters’ lives are under threat”.