OUTMODED CULTURAL PRACTICES

              

A MINOR UNDERGOING  TRIBAL MARK TRAUMA

Every society has a way of doing things and so every society has a culture. Culture  refers to the totality of what is learnt by individual members of a society.
In Ghana, every ethnic group has its own traditions which evolve to deal with human situations of the time, some become obsolete, that is the ethnic group may have no good reason to continue the practice. Some are also found to be    harmful in the perspective of modern and scientific knowledge. Harmful traditional practices are those that hurt, injure and humiliate people, even though the practitioner may not consider them harmful. In Ghana, examples of such practices include female genital mutilation (FGM), Widowhood rites and Tribal marks. At this period of our country’s history, the call by well- meaning citizens that these cultural practices must be abolished should be seen as a step in the right direction.

  Female genital mutilation, a cultural practice which has come under increased attack especially by women groups and organizations is widely practiced in the Northern and Upper Regions. This practice which is a genital operation normally performed on females before they reach adolescent age, involves the cutting off the clitoris(the inner lips) and often the labia majora(outer lips) and sewing her vulva ,leaving out just a tiny opening for urine and for menstrual flow. This operation as claimed by traditionalists is carried out mainly to encourage the woman, whose enjoyment of sexual relation  is seriously impaired  to remain a virgin until marriage and so be more attractive to a potential husband. This argument is baseless when we consider the fact that, the operation is baseless when we consider the fact that, the operation apart from the use of unsterilized instruments inflicts physical pain on the victims. This practice is indeed insulting and demeaning to the integrity of womanhood.

The widowhood rite is another case in point. It’s another cultural practice that a woman/man goes through following the death of a husband or wife respectively and it prevails in various forms among some ethnic groups in Ghana. And the purpose of this wicked act is carried out in order to prevent the spirit/ghost of the dead spouse from haunting the widow. Some of the negative act meted out to the poor widows includes sleeping with the dead, confinement for a period between three to ten days, swallowing the saliva of the dead spouse. This practice of widowhood rite is indeed oppressive and in my estimation, represents evil against women and should be abolish outright.

    The making of tribal marks is another controversial cultural practice .This cultural practice has outlived its usefulness because of its negative effect on the individual involved. Passports, the national identification card and travel certificates are now a modern means of identifying people. The only inherent difficulty is the monetary value of a passport, but with the national identification card there is no money involved. It is true that there is the need to preserve our cultural past but the cultural practices based on tribal marks have no place in this modern era. Apart from the use of unsterilized blades which can cause infection, the victims face is also disfigured exposing the person to public ridicule. This is mainly practiced among some ethnic groups in the Northern and Upper Regions in Ghana.

     Culture indeed should be seen to be dynamic, that is responding to changing times but the cultural practices in question are totally not acceptable and should be abolished.