[afro-nets] Breaking the Silence on Female Genital Cutting (3)

[Jennipher Twebaze <jennipher@chdc-muk.com>]

Breaking the Silence on Female Genital Cutting (3)
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Dear Jinna Samara Halperin,

Thanks for such information. It is encouraging and may be with
time we shall overcome this horror! However, firstly I would
like to request for a change in the use of the word 'cutting'.
It sounds so clear and scaring. I would suggest we use the word
'mutilation' because it carries the actual 'meaning' of the con-
text of the activity! Let it be 'Female Genital Mutilation'
(FGM).

I would like to thank Pathfinder International/Ethiopia for the
job well-done. We have these communities here in Uganda who are
still practising the exercise. But as a Sociologist, I would
like to suggest that this is an issue that needs to be handled
with care! I hope those people who had their wedding will not be
rejected in their societies, for doing something that is not ap-
preciated in their communities. It sounds funny that they can be
rejected, but that is the reality! I would like to cite an exam-
ple from Karamoja, Uganda. There are people who departed from
this community and went to the Urban City. But because they were
redundant in the City, they were repatriated back to their vil-
lages of origin by the Government.

But I would like to tell you that they were rejected by the peo-
ple in the Community, Government had to put up structures to
house them meanwhile as they tried to explain to the community
that actually these were their sons and daughters! They were re-
jected because some of the reasons, among others, given were
that they were no longer practising their social roles as ex-
pected by society and that they had HIV/AIDS! Another example is
that one of the Members of Parliament who advocated for stopping
of the activity was not voted again to Parliament from one of
the communities!

Therefore, it is very important to understand in the first place
why such communities practice FGM, then identify ways of how to
solve it from the very people practising it. This makes it eas-
ier to deal with the issue. It is a gradual process but we shall
get there. I encourage everyone to spread the Gospel of 'prob-
lems, risks and implications' that go with FGM.

Thank you so much Pathfinder International/Ethiopia, keep it up.

Regards,

Twebaze Jenipher
Makerere University
P.O. Box 6717
Kampala, Uganda
mailto:jennipher@chdc-muk.com