VFN mobilises young Nigerians on aggressive social media campaigns against FGM
By Ekene Agbor, Osogbo
Young Nigerians have reinvigorated their efforts at ensuring that Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) becomes a thing of the past in the country.
This fresh and aggressive move to create awareness on the debilitating consequences of the act of cutting girls and women was renewed to commemorate the 2021 International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation.
This year’s End FGM’s day is globally themed: “No Time for Global Inaction: Unite, Fund and Act to End Female Genital Mutilation.”
Under the coordination of a Non-Governmental Organisation in Osun State, Value Female Network (VFN), the youths stormed all social media platforms including Twitter, Instagram, Facebook among others to lament the dangers inherent in FGM and the need for people to desist from the deadly act.
With hashtags ranging from #Act2EndFGM, #UniteAgainstFGM, among others, the young Nigerians created several contents on FGM and different infographics to sensitise social media users.
The youths commenced the media storm on Friday and dovetailed to Saturday to continue the media campaign.
Speaking, the coordinator of the social media campaign from Value Female Network, Mr Samuel Abimbade called on all stakeholders to re-strategise and ensure that FGM is ended before 2030.
Explaining what brought about the concept, Abimbade said “Social media storm is conceptualized to leverage on the power of social media to create massive measurable awareness and drive social change.
“The activity is designed to make use of Twitter as an online platform for young people to reach peers and the general populace with FGM information, amplify state and nationwide efforts of UNFPA to end female genital mutilation, advocate to policymakers and key sectors in Nigeria for FGM budget line and for more investment in the protection of the girl child against harmful cultural practices.
“With the support of the united nations population fund, 30 passionate young people were carefully selected. Two additional social media influencers/celebrities will be carefully selected to strengthen the Twitter engagement for two days. Series of unified infographics were developed to reinforce tweet engagement and create awareness on FGM.
“The two-day activity spaned from 6th – 7th February 2021. A unified hashtag was created to support the already announced hashtag by the United Nations Joint Programme on the elimination of FGM (#Act2EndFGM). At the end of the activity, a social media analytic tool, Socialert would be used to measure the impact of the online engagement.”
