Source: The Observer (Kampala)
Three years after MPs passed the anti-FGM law, the brutal practice still thrives undercover among the Pokot and Kadama communities, as Moses Mugalu found out.

On February 5, four girls lay in deep pain in one of the cubicles at Mbale regional referral hospital's inpatient wards. There was a marked silence as we (a team of journalists and Unicef officials) walked in to check on the girls. One of them, Penninah Chepuso, 17, managed to explain that their condition had greatly improved.

"We're much better now," she said.

Chepuso and her colleagues Susan Nasiwa (18), Rebecca Nakiru (16) and Jacqueline Kilipa (18), all from Looro sub-county in Amudat district, had been brought to Mbale hospital for corrective surgeries on their private parts.

They are victims of female genital mutilation (FGM), a practice in which the sexually sensitive clitoris and/or vaginal labia are cut off. Although FGM has been outlawed in Uganda since 2010, Kadama and Pokot communities in Karamoja's Nakapiripirit and Amudat districts continue to secretly circumcise girls, a practice also carried out among the Sebei and Kenya's Kalenjin people.

Girls between eight and fourteen years of age are cut - by elderly women often using unsterilised razor blades or knives - to initiate them into womanhood and subsequent early marriages.

The girls go through harrowing experiences that include extensive bleeding, paralyzed legs and scars from the open injuries. They also risk contracting HIV/Aids. At 12, Chepuso underwent the knife and suffered severe injuries, leaving scars that caused complications during the birth of her first baby two years later.

Unfortunately, her baby died during a difficult delivery that left her with torn vaginal muscles from the FGM scars. Since then she was always wet and smelly from passing urine uncontrollably. This fistula required corrective surgery to stop.

But she could not afford the surgery, which costs about Shs 4.8m. But early this year, Unicef, through Looro community-based organisation Kamasoi Women's Group, offered to pay for her operation and five others'.

Mary Kiza, a social worker in Looro, says there are as many as 300 girls in need of corrective surgery. She notes that they were circumcised between May and August last year, despite the existing anti-FGM law.

Amudat Resident District Commissioner Steven Nsubuga Bewaayo says some parents connive with relatives across the border to sneak their daughters into Kenya for circumcision.

Just like Uganda, Kenya has an anti-FGM law, passed last year but largely unenforced. Fortunately some girls are resisting their parents' push for circumcision. Some 278 ran away from their homes to camp at Kalas primary school, one of two government FMG rescue centres in Amudat.

Another rescue centre is at Naporokocho primary school. Police have deployed at each rescue centre to guard against angry Pokot parents following up on the girls.Counsellors and teachers at these schools empower girls with knowledge about the dangers of FGM. They are also given necessities such as clothes, food, scholastic materials and blankets.

Bewaayo also blames local political leaders for fearing to publicly condemn the practice: "They cannot speak against it for fear of losing votes and in some cases they help offenders escape the wrath of law."

He cites a recent incident in Lemusui, Moruita sub-county, where the police moved in to arrest several old women lining up to mutilate some girls. The group, holed-up in caves in the Kadum mountains, was tipped off by local leaders and escaped.

But not all is lost. In Looro, a group of elderly women who recently denounced and abandoned circumcising girls appealed for support from government; the FGM exercise brought them money, clothes (skirts) and beads.

During celebrations to mark the International Day on Zero Tolerance to FGM at Amanang SS in Bukwo district, former cutters and elders from Karamoja and Sebei regions committed to a declaration on helping their communities abandon the practice.

Junior Minister for Primary Health Care Sarah Opendi warned that elders and leaders who abetted FGM faced 10 years' imprisonment.

"FGM has no known health benefits but its complications are known; so, be cooperative with government in stamping out this harmful practice," Opendi said.

According to Rebecca Kwagala, Unicef's programme specialist for Karamoja, the UN's children organisation is incorporating the grandmother approach into their anti-FGM sensitisation campaign messages.

Sebei and Karimojong elders participate in a march as one of the activities to demonstrate their commitment to the fight against FGM on February 6

• Uganda