FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION: A THREAT TO FEMALE SPORTS PARTICIPATION IN EKITI STATE

Abstract

Female Genital Mutilation is widespread among the various ethnic groups and socio-economic groups and classes and it is usually practice for cultural, religious, and ritual purposes, often as part of initiation rite into womanhood. Noting that the health of a girl-child is paramount to effective sport participation among elites. Without an optimal healthy living among female or girl-child, sports participation will be male gender focused, leading to gender inequality in sports. Hence, the researcher seek to examine female genital mutilation as impediment to sports participation amongst girl-child in Ekiti State. Descriptive survey research design was adopted for this study and two hundred (200) respondents were selected using multi-staged sampling techniques. A self-constructed questionnaire was developed by the researcher to collect data for the study. The instrument was validated by experts and a reliability coefficient of 0.86 was obtained using split half method of reliability. All data collected was analysed using inferential statistics of Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Regression to test the hypotheses set for the study at 0.05 level of significance. From the results of the study, that female Genital Mutilation had significant impact on health of a girl-child/women in the society and thereby affecting female sport participation in Ekiti State. Majorly, psychological trauma and health implications of FGM tends to have significant impact on sport participation of females in sport. The researcher therefore recommended that planned health education campaigns are mandatory to elude the drawbacks of female genital mutilation and hazards of continuation of the practice so as to promote the healthy living of female in order to facilitate their participation in sport as well as maintain a balance of gender equality in sport.