Source: BeMagazine
On April 17, 2014 our third day filming ‘Chasing the Cut’, two women aged 19 and 23 walk with difficulty to meet us at Kati kit Primary School in Amudat Uganda. One of them, Cheg (not real name) aged 23, managed to explain what the problem is. 

“This it not easy,” she said, referring to her inability to walk straight. Cheg and her friend had been forced to undergo genital mutilation when they were still young and have carried the effects throughout their lives. They developed fistula after undergoing genital mutilation while Cheg complained of paralysis in her left foot which said forced  her to drop out of school because she could longer manage to walk to  the only school in her community which she says was 16 kilometers from her home.

Female Genital Mutilation is still carried out  on girls of school-going age despite available legislations in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. Like Cheg, most  girls forced to undergo FGM suffer severe injuries, leaving with permanent health complications while some die from infections and bleeding.  Child marriages, HIV/AIDS prevalence and low literacy levels are closely linked to FGM in communities where it’s still practiced. In Amudat district Uganda, the literacy level is at less than 3% and girls constitute less than 12% of children who complete primary education.

‘It doesn’t matter whether the circumcision takes places at the age of 9, 10, 12, 13, these girls are counted as adults and therefore ready for marriage, and you find that children are married.” – Swaleh Lokeno, leader of  Community Based Organization.

At 11, Chet (not real name) a student of Kati kit Primary School in northeastern Uganda fled from home when she learnt that her parents were planning to force her to undergo FGM and marry her off. “ My aunt told me they had found a man to marry me and she wanted to take to be cut so that the man can accept me as his wife. I ran away from home and went to the councilor who later brought me here. I don’t want to go back home because they will cut me and take to Kenya to marry that man.”

“People here think that girls have no right to education, that’s why you meet several young mothers in villages. When a girl gets breast, parents take her as an adult and start initiating her into the marriage process. In some villages, girls are booked when they are still young as long the husband-to-be pays bride price, that’s it becomes very hard for such children to stay in school”  – Peninah , Amudat Interreligious Development Initiative.

Sister Nantongo , the head teacher of Kalas Girls Schools told us of how her school was raided by Pokot tribe warriors to forcefully take away a girl they claimed was their wife after giving her parents cows. In February 2014 alone, it was reported that 200 girls fled from their homes in one district in Uganda. It’s reported that some parents connive with relatives across the border to sneak their daughters into neighboring Kenya for genital mutilation and marriage.

In communities like Amudat where poverty levels are among the highest in Uganda, with only twelve primary schools, one secondary school, its very hard for girls to stay in school. If they are not forced out school because of FGM and forced into marriage by their parents, some drop out because they can’t walk long distance to schools.  There is need to contentiously engage communities in children’s rights awareness campaign, increase availability of education facilities, build the capacity of communities and children to go and stay in school and create environments for girls to thrive.