CoH staff do all they can to combat forced early marriage, as reported recently.
Thankfully, the horrible practice of FGM isn’t so much of a problem in Namatala – however our staff constantly keep an eye out for it. There is an area to the north/east of Namatala (around the popular tourist spot of Sipi Falls) which a particular tribe inhabits and continues FGM on young girls.
Bex had an interesting conversation with a couple from that tribe not so long ago: "The man laughed off the whole notion of FGM being a problem saying that it was something that the women all accepted and knew had to be done. I asked the woman about her thoughts and she really saw it as a ‘right of passage’ – and when I asked her about her daughters she confirmed that they would all be ‘circumcised’ – she had when she was a girl, so why shouldn’t they?"
The Government's announcement about its event states: "FGM violates the rights of girls and women both in this country and overseas.
"FGM is an extremely damaging and excruciating painful practice which has a devastating impact on women’s and girls’ physical and mental health and well-being and their opportunities in life. Many girls die as a result of the practice and women who have undergone FGM are significantly more likely to suffer serious complications in childbirth. UN figures estimate that 3 million girls a year in Africa alone are at risk of FGM and that 125 million women and girls have been cut. In some African countries 9 out of 10 girls are cut."
