The fight against Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) continues to be top on the agenda of the Inter-African Committee on Traditional Practices affecting the Health of Women and Children (IAC). To pursue its agenda more effectively, the IAC has decided to actively involve the media in its drive for the change of social attitudes and practices to protect women and girls from harmful traditional practices. The IAC, therefore, held a two-day regional media workshop in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for 20 journalists from Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, The Gambia, Liberia, Kenya, Tanzania, Sudan , Egypt and Ethiopia. The workshop was organised to create a closer working relationship with the media for the promotion of gender equality through eradication of such harmful attitudes and practices as FGM. Mrs Berhane Ras-Work, Executive Director of IAC, said at the opening ceremony that the IAC had realised the strong potential of the media to promoting positive values and norms, while discouraging negative attitudes that violated basic human rights principles. She said the media could play a crucial role through information and communication since "harmful traditional practices flourish in the fertile ground of ignorance". "The lives of women and girls are governed by die-hard negative traditional values, since women are deprived of information and education on their basic rights to their health and general wellbeing," she stated. Presenting a paper on FGM, Dr Abebe Kebede, Executive Director of the National Association on Traditional Practices of Ethiopia, said FGM violated a number of recognised human rights that were pro¬tected in international and regional documents. The rights include the right to be free from gender discrimination, the right not to be subjected to violence, the right to life, liberty and security of people and other rights issues. He said that even though some compared FGM to male circumci¬sion, it was not the same since the FGM, from a biological view point was equivalent to the amputation of part or the entire penis with very similar physical and sexual results. Among the widely held beliefs about FGM are that it suppresses women's sexuality, reduces insubordination and controls women's emotions, prevents them from breaking utensils, makes them absent-minded and too bold. On when the practice began, Dr Kebede said the earliest known writing on the subject suggested that FGM had been practised in Egypt for the past 2,000 years. Leading a discussion on the role of the media in the campaign to eliminate FGM and other harmful traditional practices, Ms Helen Ovbiagele, Woman Editor of the Vanguard in Lagos, Nigeria, asked the media not to limit its role of educating and informing the society to the urban areas only, but should as well interact with the people at the grassroots because exploring and questioning issues could urge society to abandon such practices. She asked the media to avail itself of the relevant data and statistics concerning victims of harmful practices and the areas where they were prevalent in order to focus attention on them. Ms Ovbiagele advised the media to regularly feed the government and the public with information about the progress made in the campaign against FGM and other harmful practices so that people would be encouraged to abolish these practices. Source: Daily Graphic