KAMPALA – Speaker Rebecca Kadaga has asked Government, through the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development to intensify their fight against Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) instead of leaving the fight to Non-Government Organisations.
The Speaker made the plea during Thursday’s plenary sitting where she said that the UGX200M that was allotted for advocate against this vice in 2009 is a long way that much still needs to be done as the practice is still trending.
She said that only NGO in the names of REACH that is carrying on the advocacy lacks the capacity to go through the entire country without government support and thus directed the Ministry of Gender, to ensure that more funds to rid Uganda of the inhumane vice are allocated in the 2020/2021 national budget.
Kadaga also said there is the need for the Ministry of Gender to include a defined proposal on what is involved in doing the advocacy against FGM as the need is still on to help girls who fall victims of the vise.
The Speaker said, “There is increase need because the vice has gone down, but it is still there and we need to work in more areas than Sebei and Karamoja. We think that time has come for Government to be visible in that campaign instead of working through NGOs. We want Government to work in the same way it did in immunization.”
It should be recalled that in July 2009, President Yoweri Museveni launched a national campaign against FGM but there hasn’t been much awareness and advocacy and possibly elimination of the practice on the girl child.
