I come from the royal family in the village of Benatabe in Ghana, West Africa.

My father was the Chief (king) of this village for over forty years. In 2006, I returned to Ghana to attend to my ailing father. Not long after my arrival he passed away, or disappeared as the people of Benatabe would say. Events turned to the worrisome when my late fathers counselors and kingmakers chose me to be the new Chief of Benatabe. My life was about to witness a turn-around. Accepting to be my fathers successor would mean accepting the very archaic and abusive traditions that I had spent my lifetime fighting. It meant I would have to marry my fathers eleven wives. It meant I would have to sleep and bear children with my siblings mothers. Most devastatingly, it meant I will have to subject my wife and daughters to the age old tradition of female genital mutilation, an egregious abuse on women.1 1 http://m.ghanatraditions.com/site/classic?url=http://www.ghanatraditions.com/index.htm&back=http %3A%2F%2Fm.ghanatraditions.com%2Fsite%2Fmobile%3Furl%3Dhttp%3A%2F %2Fwww.ghanatraditions.com%2Findex.htm ___________________________________________________________________________________ ...we believe that folk media can be accommodated by contemporary theories of communication, education, and behavior change. In fact, it may be that folk media are better suited for theory-driven communication interventions than such modern techniques as participatory rural appraisal and use of mass media, to which many Africans do not relate well.2 2 Using Folk Media in HIV/AIDS Prevention in Rural Ghana Solomon Panford, Maud Ofori Nyaney, Samuel Opoku Amoah, Nana Garbrah Aidoo Am J Public Health. 2001 October; 91(10): 15591562. ___________________________________________________________________________________ The form of female genital mutilation (FGM) or female genital cutting (FGC) most commonly practiced in Ghana is Type II (commonly referred to as excision). ...the Gender Studies and Human Rights Documentation Center estimated that it had been performed on 15 percent of the Ghanaian female population. In 1996, Amnesty International Ghana, together with the Association of Church Development Projects, estimated that 76 percent of all women in the Upper East, Upper West and Northern regions had been excised.3 3 United States Department of State, Ghana: Report on Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) or Female Genital Cutting (FGC), 1 June 2001, available at: http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/46d57878c.html [accessed 13 March 2013] ___________________________________________________________________________________ Polygamy constitutes 29% of all marriages in northern Ghana, according to the most recently published Ghana Demographic and Health Survey in 2003.4 4 http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/5188680.stm ________________________________________________________________________ http://www.bing.com/images/search? q=dark+red+background&FORM=HDRSC2#view=detail&id=5FDA8EC599D26B3B6C323D4D8A9

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