Uganda-Kenyan border villages fuel new FGM

Uganda – Kenya border villages in Karamoja and Sebei Sub-regions are still the hotspots where girls and women are being mutilated, Monitor has learnt.
The Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) point focal person for Moroto District, Mr Moses Loru King, said cases of FGM at border villages have been on the rise, ranging from 10 to 30 cases every even year the vice is carried out.
“We need to focus our intention on the border villages because that is where the cutters are hiding and it’s where they base to cut our girls and women. The FGM law also does not help much because it does not talk about cross-border FGM and this has made it to flourish,” he said.
He made the remarks during an engagement meeting organised to end FGM at the district headquarters at the weekend.
The meeting was organised by ActionAid Uganda and funded by United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) is geared towards upholding social norms to end FGM in the sub-regions still suffering from the harmful practice.
FGM practice comprises all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons.
Among the border villages where cases are reported include Masai, Naoyapong, Lokitela Arengan found on the Kenya side and Lodoket Amoroto, Kachalakieny, Napodo, Adyakero and Naturongole found in Uganda.
According to the statistics from Moroto District, about 30 girls were mutilated in 2018, a total of 25 in 2020, and 20 in 2022 and close to 30 this year so far.
The cases are spread across the affected border villages.
Mr Loru said the leaders in Sebei and Karamoja Sub-region need to engage their counterparts in Kenya to collaborate so that the cutters are hunted and apprehended to face the law.
“The challenge, however, is some political leaders of some districts fear to speak out against FGM, so collaboration never succeeds,” he said.
In 2010, FGM was made illegal with the passing of the Prohibition of FGM Act. This act criminalises those who mutilate or attempt to mutilate girls or women, and those who seek to undergo FGM.
According to a 2023 report by ActionAid–Uganda, an international anti- poverty agency, despite the interventions on FGM abandonment, some of the communities have changed the tactics of FGM practice from doing it in public and to hiding in bushes, indoors, and using traditional birth attendants across borders.
Ms Monica Adonga, a survival of FGM, said girls and pregnant women are ferried across to border villages for mutilation.
“The government and non-government organisations needs to do more if FGM is to be eliminated, otherwise it will continue to go despite its life threatening effects,” she said.
Ms Sara Chekwemoi, a FGM victim in Bukwo District, said FGM causes psychological problems such as stress and low self-esteem.
“You lose the courage and you feel inferior,” she said.
Ms Annet kapcheronge, an Anti–FGM activist in Kween District, said the knife is extremely painful as it causes over bleeding.
“I over bleed and when you are mutilated, you lose appetite for the man. I advise girls to be at school,” she said.
The practice of FGM is recognised intentionally as a violation of the human rights of girls and women. It also violates the rights to health, security and physical integrity; the right to be free from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment; and the right to life, in instances when the procedure results in death of the victim.
Ms Eveline Chesang, a youth, said lack of political and cultural will is the partly to blame for cases of FGM that are still being registered in Sebei. 
"I have seen the physical and psychological scars FGM leaves on girls. The pain doesn't end after the procedure, but our elders have continued to pay a deaf ear to call to stop it,” she said
The chairperson of Moroto, Mr David Koryang, said access to education is part of the solution to end FGM.
“The educated girls rarely allow themselves to be misled. This means attention should focus on supporting the young girls to access education and also involving the religious institutions and cultural leaders because people listen to them,” he said.
Dr George Ogwang, a medical officer at Amudat Hospital, said they receive many cases of women at the hospital with several complications after undergoing FGM, including narrow birth canal.
“We always have to enlarge the vaginal [for FGM victims], if not, babies are born with difficulties and may lead to death,” Dr Ogwanga said.
He also revealed that many mothers that have undergone FGM develop fistula because of deep cuts.
“The victims also face urinary, vaginal and also menstrual problems such as painful menstruations like difficulty in passing menstrual blood,” he said.
Mr Samuel Francis Ononge, the project officer for FGM and working with Action Aid- Uganda, said: “We believe the activity will strengthen and increase the number of grassroots efforts to challenge social norms and also promote gender equality and elimination of FGM.” 
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