SOROTI – Youth leaders in Sebei and Karamoja sub-regions have urged the Government to consider the inclusion of young people in policymaking as one of the mechanisms to curb Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) by 2030.
FGM is outlawed in Uganda today, but communities in Sebei and Karamoja continue to practise it, mostly underground – in bushes, forests, caves, and even across the border.
At a national dialogue by Action Aid International Uganda last week, youth leaders said young people have a huge role to play in the elimination of FGM and Child Marriages.
Gloria Chelangat, the global youth consortium country representative, particularly in Uganda said youths should be put at the forefront and also included in all budgeting steps
“Government should take a keen interest in youth inclusion to ensure that young people are in every stage of preparatory in terms of budgeting because young people miss out and this is actually how we end up finding gaps because little funds that are allocated to young people and they cannot be able to execute some of these activities,” she said.
Chelangat also asked authorities to allocate funds to Female Genital Mutilation and early marriage awareness creation campaigns as one of the mechanisms to halt the vices.
“We don’t see the budget allocated to FGM or Early Marriages awareness activities, the government should come in to ensure that this is also included in their budgeting so that we have the awareness creation as our continuous activity within the communities of Sebei and Karamoja region.” She said
“As a country, we are glad that as young people, we are willing to give in our full effort, the government should know that young people are the influencers and they can be able to talk peer to peer, I believe that having this will cause impact.” She added
Ronnie Limo, a member of the Youth Advisory Board for Reproductive Health Uganda and a community activity with AAIU said the funds that the government allocates for the eradication or scaling up the campaign against female genital mutilation is not enough.
“As young people, we also want the government to increase the budget allocation to community campaigns. The UGX 1 million every year cannot do a lot to sustain the campaigns,” Limo said
He added: “In Kapchorwa district, we have a budget of 1 million and that is only for council sittings, and yet young people have a lot of activities to do in the fight against female genital mutilation and GBV.”
Phyllis Chemutai, the District Woman MP Kapchorwa, said the government is taking necessary steps to end the practice.
“We are doing our best to fight early marriages and teenage pregnancy. Come 2030, we will have achieved our goals,” MP Chemutai noted.
She explained that both boys and boys in FGM commonplace areas such as Sebei Karamoja regions need proper education to help bolster the eradication efforts.
Samuel Francis Ononge, the AAUI project officer handling UNFPA-funded projects in the Sebei subregion said that engaging youths, is an approach they believe will help in the fight Against FGM, youths being agents of change.
Ononge said despite its criminalization and community interventions the practice continues to gain an upward trajectory
“Much as it is at a smaller scale compared to how it was before, and we got to realise that now the method has changed, whereby those days, people would openly practice it but nowadays, what they do, they use traditional birth attendants to conduct FGM during the time of birth. And that’s why we decided to say no, we needed to bring the young people and the policymakers on board. We need to bring digital bearers, and discuss issues about young people,” Ononge said.
He said that the unwillingness of cultural and political leaders to speak about FGM, especially during community gatherings has given those who practice it confidence to continue.
He believes the engagement with young people, will act as a surveillance measure to monitor the prevalence of FGM and report accordingly as one way to collect proper data about FGM.
“It has become quite difficult to have the actual FGM statistics in the Sebei region, the reason being there’s too much secrecy. Communities are not willing to speak about the practice, so because of that, you find that, it’s very difficult to come out and say, this time, we had 100, the other day, we had this figure, so there is completely no proper data and that’s why now we are engaging the young people to ensure that they can engage with the communities and act as surveillance people to monitor the prevalence of FGM and report accordingly.” He added.
The engagement was attended by Youths from six districts of Sebei and Karamoja regions, namely, Kapchorwa, Bukwo, Kween Moroto, and Nakapiripiriti.
Laxity of the judicial system
Youth leaders decried the laxity of the judicial system, saying there’s a lot of bureaucracy in courts of law.
They also noted that perpetrators connive with police after the cases have been reported, a few days after they hear stories like the files have been stolen.
They added that perpetrators are not brought to justice because of the laxity of the judicial system.
They praised organizations like Action Aid International Uganda, for always organizing dialogues like these that bring stakeholders, youths, cultural, religious leaders, and policymakers together to share and pave ways on how vises like FGM can be stopped.
They also called upon the government to rescale up and build the capacity with a police force and also find other ways of how best they can engage.
