MPs must fight FGM tooth and nail
EDITOR—Recently, I was in Cape Town, South Africa to attend a gender meeting organised by AWEPA (European Parliamentarians for Africa) and I came face to face with Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).
EDITOR—Recently, I was in Cape Town, South Africa to attend a gender meeting organised by AWEPA (European Parliamentarians for Africa) and I came face to face with Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).
First of all, I did not know exactly what happens during this most cruel exercise done in the name of culture. Ever since I was a child, I had heard stories of female circumcision but little did I know about what exactly happens. A man working with AWEPA (Rwanda) had a short but elaborate movie on FGM.
It was recorded in Ethiopia by Unicef in March. I had never watched anything as cruel as FGM. The whole female genitalia is removed and nothing is left save for the urine outlet! In the movie, girls wailed in vain for help. Their legs were tied together so they didn’t tear. They were cut without even being sedated and were given no medication to heal.
At the sight of a woman with a crude black blade, and children wailing fearing the ‘knife’, I collapsed and fell off my seat as soon as I saw the first cut. I had never been as traumatised as that day. Dora Byamukama from the East African Legislative Assembly and Mary Mugyenyi (MP Nyabushozi) and some MPs from Rwanda helped me out of the room where we were watching the movie.
I could not believe that we had sitting presidents in Africa watching this gruesome abuse of the rights of girls and women in the name of culture. I was later told by women who had an experience in FGM that some of them rot in the private parts and sometimes even die.
FGM victims significantly experience difficulties during childbirth and their babies are more likely to die as a result of the gruesome practice. It is said that 100 million women worldwide are victims of FGM and now many countries are reiterating calls for total abolition of the practice.
The FGM practices are reported in at least 28 African countries, among a number of groups in South and East Asia and and some immigrants in Europe, North America and Australia who come from these countries and regions.
In Africa, however, the highest prevalence of FGM are in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, Eritrea, Mali and Sudan where it is done on children between one and four years and adolescents of 14 years.
The perpetrators of FGM reason that it attenuates sexual desire in the female, maintain chastity and virginity before marriage and fidelity during marriage, blah, blah. All the reasons are selfish meant for the pleasure of men at the expense of women.
Parliamentarians, male and female, as we get close to the debate on FGM, let us fight the evil vehemently. As you deliver your input to the Bill prohibiting FGM, remember your daughters who will be denied sexual pleasure for ever, undergo child birth risks and social stigma when they join a different society that does not believe in the practice.
Margaret Muhanga Mugisa
MP, Kabarole
First of all, I did not know exactly what happens during this most cruel exercise done in the name of culture. Ever since I was a child, I had heard stories of female circumcision but little did I know about what exactly happens. A man working with AWEPA (Rwanda) had a short but elaborate movie on FGM.
It was recorded in Ethiopia by Unicef in March. I had never watched anything as cruel as FGM. The whole female genitalia is removed and nothing is left save for the urine outlet! In the movie, girls wailed in vain for help. Their legs were tied together so they didn’t tear. They were cut without even being sedated and were given no medication to heal.
At the sight of a woman with a crude black blade, and children wailing fearing the ‘knife’, I collapsed and fell off my seat as soon as I saw the first cut. I had never been as traumatised as that day. Dora Byamukama from the East African Legislative Assembly and Mary Mugyenyi (MP Nyabushozi) and some MPs from Rwanda helped me out of the room where we were watching the movie.
I could not believe that we had sitting presidents in Africa watching this gruesome abuse of the rights of girls and women in the name of culture. I was later told by women who had an experience in FGM that some of them rot in the private parts and sometimes even die.
FGM victims significantly experience difficulties during childbirth and their babies are more likely to die as a result of the gruesome practice. It is said that 100 million women worldwide are victims of FGM and now many countries are reiterating calls for total abolition of the practice.
The FGM practices are reported in at least 28 African countries, among a number of groups in South and East Asia and and some immigrants in Europe, North America and Australia who come from these countries and regions.
In Africa, however, the highest prevalence of FGM are in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, Eritrea, Mali and Sudan where it is done on children between one and four years and adolescents of 14 years.
The perpetrators of FGM reason that it attenuates sexual desire in the female, maintain chastity and virginity before marriage and fidelity during marriage, blah, blah. All the reasons are selfish meant for the pleasure of men at the expense of women.
Parliamentarians, male and female, as we get close to the debate on FGM, let us fight the evil vehemently. As you deliver your input to the Bill prohibiting FGM, remember your daughters who will be denied sexual pleasure for ever, undergo child birth risks and social stigma when they join a different society that does not believe in the practice.
Margaret Muhanga Mugisa
MP, Kabarole