KAMPALA – Lowering the number of women and girls subjected to Female Genital Mutilation (FGM] requires further education among communities that practice the procedure.
This is according to the executive director of Reproductive Education and Community Health Ms. Beatrice Chelangat should involve the approach of visiting homes in one-to-one settings, and preaching against it in schools and churches.
REACH is an NGO that is involved in the fight against FGM in Kaphorwa, Kween, Bukwo, Amudat, Bugiri and Moroto districts.
REACH has taken the campaign to eradicate FGM to the communities by raising awareness and building consciousness amongst the people.
“We cannot just make a public pronouncement that FGM is no more, we can’t coarse people using the law to denounce FGM, this tradition has spent several thousand years and the people who practice it must know exactly how it is harmful to them,” Ms Chelangat said.
“No traditional Sabiny would believe that the procedure is horrible but after sensitization and watching videos on FGM, the decision to denounce FGM becomes a personal one,” she added.
Funded by AfDB through UNRA, The REACH program has started training workshops against FGM that gives participants the opportunity to engage on issues of female sexuality and of Gender-Based Violence.
The Woman MP for Kapchorwa Ms Phyllis Chemutai said people should educate their communities to discard FGM as a bad practice of land that fuels abuse of girl-child.
Ms Evelyn Chebet Kubarika, the Kapchorwa district LCV chairperson said her council was devising plans to end FGM through community sensitization, education, and policing in remote areas, especially the hills.