A Culture of Silence, Ayomikun’s Story Renews Calls to End FGM

Although Nigeria outlawed Female Genital Mutilation in 2015 under the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act, the practice remains alarmingly prevalent.

According to UNICEF, Nigeria has the third highest number of FGM survivors globally, with an estimated 19.9 million women and girls affected.

Lara Adeyanju’s daughter, Ayomikun, was just weeks away from her seventh birthday when she died. The bright, energetic girl had been born in 2018, and her upcoming birthday on January 16, 2025 was supposed to be a joyful milestone. But instead, she was buried just days before Christmas.

Her cause of death: complications from Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) — a procedure still carried out in some Nigerian families, despite being banned by federal law.

“She bled heavily. Her private part was swollen. Her temperature was so high, she couldn’t talk or eat,” Lara recalled. “By the time we got to the hospital, the infection had spread. She died in my arms on December 18.”

Lara married into her husband’s family in 2016, unaware of how strongly the custom of FGM was enforced. She explained that in her husband’s household, the practice is not just a tradition but a non-negotiable obligation — one that is tied to family honor, female purity, and lineage legitimacy.“They told me a girl who is not circumcised is not a full daughter of the family,” she said.

It was also gathered from report that a member of the family was alleged to have been mutilated also, and she is often used as a reference — a surviving child of FGM.

Lara said she begged her husband and his family to reconsider. But her objections were ignored. “In that family, women are expected to submit, not speak,” she said. “If you refuse, they punish you. If you resist, they replace you.”

Ayomikun, like many girls before her, was taken through the procedure as an act of “cleansing.” Within days, she began to suffer. “She was shaking. Her cries were weak. I knew something was wrong,” Lara said. “She looked at me like she wanted me to save her. But it was too late.”

Her death was quickly rationalized by the family as “the will of God.” The same explanation, Lara said, was given for two other young girls in the extended family who had died in similar circumstances.

In fact, the 2023 U.S. State Department Country Report on Human Rights Practices for Nigeria confirms that FGM remains common, particularly in rural and traditional communities, where enforcement of anti-FGM laws is limited and cultural pressures remain strong.

In many communities, especially in the southern and southwestern regions, cultural expectations and familial pressure continue to override medical evidence and legal restrictions. Advocacy groups and public health experts have documented cases where mothers — even those opposed to FGM — are forced into silence by dominant male relatives or social norms that treat refusal as betrayal.

One expert described Lara’s experience as tragically common: “The mother often knows the risk. But the system around her — whether cultural, religious, or patriarchal — strips her of the power to protect her child.”

FGM, widely condemned by the World Health Organization, has no medical benefit and is internationally recognized as a violation of the rights of women and girls. It can result in severe bleeding, infection, infertility, complications during childbirth — and in the worst cases, death.

“I did everything I could within the limits of what I was allowed,” Lara said. “But Ayomikun died because tradition mattered more to them than her life. And I will never forgive that.”

“FGM is not culture. It is violence. It is torture dressed as tradition. And it must stop.”