Uganda, Kampala – “With no safe houses- schools, girls will be genitally mutilated,” said 21- year old Ruth Chelangat a community mobiliser, who mobilizes girls against female genital mutilation (FGM) in Kwosir sub county in Kween district of Uganda’s largely rural Sebei region.
“You can’t receive protection in the neighborhood during the cutting season,” she stated.
In areas of Uganda where FGM is performed, the “cutting season” usually coincides with school holidays, as it is this year. FGM, which includes damaging or modifying the female genitalia for non-medical reasons, can have a variety of severe health repercussions for girls who are exposed to it, including pain, infections, hemorrhaging, and death.
But when Betty Cheboi, was 22 years old, she implored her parents not to have her cut. They didn’t listen, and she had no safe place to run to. She nearly bled to death from her wounds.
Afterwards, she made her close relatives promise not to cut her younger sisters. For Cheboi, it was the beginning of a lifetime of activism to end FGM.
After receiving training from the Right Here, Right Now II (RHRN II) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), several youth teams in the Karamoja and Sebei regions are spreading the word that girls can find refuge at the safe houses operated in Amudat and Kween districts through, school programs, young people’s safe spaces at health centers, and community outreach.
“this is part of our effort to change negative values, norms and rituals abusing the enjoyment of sexual reproductive health and rights, in addition to young people’s gender justice,” Cheboi said.
However, according to Joseph Cheptegei, Kwosir sub-county Community Development Officer, when a cry for aid comes in, whether from a girl at risk or a concerned community member, identifying the girl can be difficult. This is due to the geography in the Sebei area, extensive unmapped land in Karamoja, and a lack of connectivity, with settlements of up to 5,000 people without plots and never appearing on Google maps.
“We are coming together to widen our network to unite people against FGM from across the Karamoja and Sebei regions,” said Cheptegei.
RHRN II, UNFPA through Reproductive Health Uganda (RHU), has organized the volunteer network’s efforts to teach young people so that activists on the ground can better protect girls since 2016.
Samuel Musani, RHRN II officer in Sebei region says that trained volunteer mobilisers, peer educators and young advocates comb through villages of rural Sebei and Karamoja regions, tracing for girls at risk or threat of FGM. They are then referred to safe houses and schools constructed by Action Aid – Uganda, Ministry of Gender, Labor and Social Development (MGLSD).
RHU works with government and other private partners like Reach a Hand Uganda (RAHU), Action Aid and Kapchorwa Civil Society Association.
During the 2021, over 2,000 volunteers in over 60 sub counties were trained under the RHRN II and UNFPA programmes by RHU and its partners.
As more and more communities abandon FGM, programming needs to zero in on remaining hotspots, noted Jackson Chekweko, RHU Executive Director.
When the cutting season is complete, most girls return home after two months. Volunteers, community social welfare personnel, and specially trained police engage with families and communities to alter attitudes, a step toward changing the societal norms that maintain FGM.
“We talk to parents,” said Chebot. “We show them that FGM has effects and is illegal in Uganda.”
Girls can return home if their parents promise to honor their requests not to be cut off and to help them in continuing their education. Every three months, the program does a check-in with the girls.
Girls whose families refuse to reconcile are housed in safe houses, where they get therapy and continue their education. Chebot, on the other hand, does not give up attempting to persuade their families to alter their beliefs.
“We are not stopping,” she said. “We keep visiting those families, talking to them so we can have reconciliation.”
While officiating the anti FGM day celebrations in Kapchorwa, on 20th April 2022, Uganda’s State Minister for Gender and Culture Peace Regis Mutuuzo, pledged that the 2010 anti FGM law will be revised to curb the new trends, that aid FGM to be done in countries neighboring Uganda.
Aldon Walukamba G, the author, is the RHU Media Advocacy and Documentation Coordinator.
