Women Of Africa (WOA) is a charity registered in the United Kingdom in 1996 as Women Of Nigeria International.

At formation in 1994, the organisation participated in the struggle to return Nigeria to civil rule and hence to end human rights abuses in that country. The Women Of Nigeria International (WONI) provided a platform for women to engage actively in the struggle for democracy that followed the annulment of Nigeria’s 12th June 1993 Presidential election. For more information log on to www.aliceukoko.org

African Rituals and Traditions
There exist in Africa traditional practices, rituals and belief systems that continue to hinder the woman’s ability to engage fully in modern day freedom for all expressions. Some of these rituals are harmful and others not so harmful but then, who defines what is harmful and what is not?

For example:
Female circumcision is an African ritual that has its origin very far back in Africa’s history, so far back that no one can really say how it originated to become an established practice in some parts of the Continent.

Although the origin of this African ritual is unknown, its practice has impacted on the lives and life styles of African women into the 21st century regardless of their educational and professional achievements.

For some of those women who are affected by circumcision, the rituals hinder their ability to engage in satisfactory sexual encounter throughout their life. This constitutes a major problem for most African women who hunger through life for satisfactory sexual expression.

Female circumcision as an African ritual and established practice has a lifelong negative effect on those women who had it done to them. As wives, they are not able to perform their sexual obligation to their husbands satisfactorily. Many see sexual encounter only as means of child bearing and pleasing their husbands.

One wonders, are those husbands who find it difficult to commit to one woman aware that the reason they may be going from woman to woman is the fact that the women is unable to satisfy their sexual urges?

What is the psychological effect of this marital shortcoming on the quality of African family life now and in the future?

Although popular global campaigning to end this African ritual is welcomed and in the interest of the rights of African women, it has been argued that African women are able to challenge any African ritual and practice once they become aware of the harmful effect of that ritual. The African woman may be reluctant to do anything for her direct benefit but she would act in the interest of her children.

To contribute to the global campaign to end female circumcision, Women Of Nigeria International (WONI) presented the dramatisation of this age long African ritual to a wide audience in 2000 and 2001 in London. For more information click on “Female Circumcision”.