By VICTORIA NGOZI IKEANO
Any foreigner and, indeed, anybody who watched a debate on the floor of the Senate for the first time recently, would probably think the country is still in the Stone Age. The senators themselves acknowledged that we are now in the 21st century, the age of enlightenment and information technology that is rendering many things utterly undesirable and no longer necessary.
If the senators are aware of this, why are they wasting time, energy and resources enacting a legislation on a trivial issue like “tribal facial marks” , that is already dying a natural death? I mean, there are loads of more important matters pressing for their attention.
Titled, ‘A Bill for an Act to provide for the Prohibition of Facial Mutilation: Offences, Prosecution and Punishment of Offenders’, it was sponsored by Senator Dino Melaye, representing Kogi West, who himself does not have facial marks.
None of the senators that spoke on the matter has any facial marks, except Senator Olusola Adeyeye, who showed off the marks on his hands which I believe is not what this bill is referring to, it not being a facial mark.
Our senators hinged reasons for the proposed bill on three planks. First, they delved into why people of olden times gave their children facial marks. This was chiefly for identification – an issue that is now overtaken with evolution of more modern means of identification. It was also said that facial marks were to lay credence to paternity. Again, this is also outdated with emergence of DNA testing.
Thirdly, they talked about the psychological and physical health issues associated with it. Said Melaye: “Some of them have developed low self-esteem and are most times treated with scorn and ridicule, including rejection by the female folks. Many of the grown adults have confessed that the most terrific debacle of their lives is their tribal marks .Some have become eunuchs because of this stigma”.
The psychological effect is true, especially in childhood and the teenage years when people poke fun at you, but not in adult years as adults behave more maturely towards you. I can cite myself as an example with my squint eyes (half past four eye).
It is not altogether true that persons with facial marks are ‘rejected by the female folks’ or vice versa. After all, physically challenged persons of both sexes do have robust relationships and marry, how much more an able-bodied person?
According to the sponsor of this bill which has now passed its second reading, “sharp instruments used by locals are not sterilized, leading to risk of AIDS, Hepatitis B and C”. It is food for thought that in bygone years when lacerating children for tribal marks was quite common, AIDS was literally unknown then.
I am not supporting this practice. I totally agree that it is harmful and a denial of the rights of a child. But, there are other similarly harmful traditional practices still being undertaken in parts of the country to-date, why are our distinguished senators not focussing on them too? Why single out only tribal marks? For example, there is female circumcision a.k.a. female genital mutilation which basically denies the girl the enjoyment of lovemaking.
Or, are we saying women have no right to enjoy the act? What about dehumanising practices that are foisted on widows in some parts of the country, such as sleeping with their husbands’ corpses for days, drinking water used in bathing the corpses and shaving their hairs? All of these, apart from demeaning women and lowering their self-esteem, are also similarly fraught with health hazards.
And, talking about legislating against tribal facial marks in order to protect the rights of the child as the senators say, there are a plethora of other rights of the child that are being trampled on everyday with our lawmakers looking the other way, so to speak. Among those that readily come to mind are the Almajiri syndrome, child begging and hawking, and withdrawal of girl-children from school for marriage.
Also, the nation still has not achieved a 100 per cent school enrolment rate which means there are children of school age that are still not in school. There is a crass denial of children’s fundamental rights. These are the kinds of issues that our senators and other lawmakers should be legislating on urgently, not matters like tribal facial marks that are better dealt with through education and public enlightenment.
Harmful traditional practices like facial marks, female circumcision and degrading widowhood rites can be tackled with a motion calling for their cessation and mobilising traditional, religious and opinion leaders to educate their people on the need to do away with these archaic practices to engender voluntary compliance.
In any case, I doubt if people still give their children facial marks, except perhaps die-hard traditionalists. The best way to make such persons jettison it is through enlightenment that would lead to personal conviction on its demerits, not any high-handed legislation.
Ikeano writes via [email protected]