‘Female Genital Mutilation law has to be harsh to end it’     Last December Uganda’s parliament passed the Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting bill into law. Irene Nabusoba spoke to the mover of the bill, Hon. Dr. Chris Baryomunsi the Vice Chairperson of Parliament’s HIV/AIDS Committee, an activist against FGM and the Member of Parliament for Kinkizi west.   People are wondering how an MP from the western region, whose community probably knows nothing about FGM, pushed the FGM bill through. Aren’t you stepping on other people’s cultures? I used to work with United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), as an officer overseeing campaigns against female genital mutilation. That was in the early 90s when a local council drastically announced that FGM was compulsory. By then, Kapchorwa and related areas practised the culture. The then minister of gender went there to stop the practice and we consequently started strong campaigns against FGM. UNFPA started a programme to sensitise people about FGM and soon people realised that they had to abandon it. As you realise, recently, the very Kapchorwa council that sought to make it compulsory, made by-laws to denounce FGM. They called upon Parliament to enact a law, because the practice is not restricted to Kapchorwa. They thought it would be difficult to make bylaws for all the practising communities. They approached me to help because I am in Parliament and had worked with them previously. Being a medical person, I have my own convictions about FGM as a practice. I have a professional duty to do something about women’s health. As a doctor, a husband, father and a son, I have a moral obligation to protect women’s health.   Do we need a law since the constitution outlaws harmful practices anyway? We need a specific law to make FGM a criminal offense. FGM is a gross offense against humanity and women in particular. Its gravity is shadowed by the generalisation, ‘harmful practices’ as stated in the constitution.   Deputy speaker of Parliament, Rebecca Kadaga (Second Right) and privatisation state minister, Rukia Chekamondo (Third Right) dance with the traditional Kalaimat Bukwo team during an anti-FGM campaign at Amanang Secondary School on November 30, 2009 . Have you ever heard of anyone being arrested, even with that law in place? Now with the bill, it spells out the penalties. A person who carries out FGM commits an offense and is liable on conviction to 10 years imprisonment. If it is aggravated FGM --where death occurs -- the victim suffers disability, or is infected with HIV/AIDS, then the offender is liable to life imprisonment on conviction. Should it be established that the sufferer sustained permanent physical disability or contracted HIV AIDS because of FGM, you go in for life. There are women who were circumcised in Kapchorwa and are now moving in wheelchairs. Also people like teachers, health workers, parents and guardians, who are ideally charged with protecting the victim, if it is established that they instead did otherwise and forced the victim to undergo the practice, then it is aggravated FGM. In some countries, where FGM is outlawed, it has been observed that the women opt to go to health workers. We are saying it is still illegal, and categorised as aggravated FGM for the health worker because there are no medical benefits to FGM. There was a case in Kenya where a girl, whose parents refused her to undergo the procedure, decided to it herself. Under the bill, you commit an offense not only against yourself but also the country and are liable to 10 years in jail. Those who attempt abet or participate in activities leading to FGM shall serve five years in jail. But most importantly, consent of the victim and culture, custom, ritual, religion or otherwise are no defence. The bill was drafted by Dorah Byamukama, the director Law and Advocacy for Women in Uganda. She is my colleague, now sitting on the East African legislative Assembly. It also provides for retraining orders to protect harassed girls and calls for protection of minors under the family and child protection courts. And whoever has knowledge of the practice and fails to report may be fined sh1m   Life imprisonment, fines… isn’t the bill so harsh? Because the practice is cruel and traumatising. It is grossly inhumane. The law has to be harsh to end it. Besides, as much as some of the girls may be willing to undergo FGM, the majority are coerced into the practice by parents, guardians and the whole community when they cite difficulties in their marriages. While many argue that it is a ‘Sabiny and Pokot cultural affair’, it is quite wide spread. It is prevalent in the eastern districts of Kapchorwa, Bukwo and Nakapiripirit or Karamoja (among the Pokot). Recent studies indicate that the practice is also in Kamuli in eastern Uganda and Kamwenge, Insingiro and Masindi districts in western Uganda. According to the UNFPA, FGM is particularly on the rise in Karamoja (Pokots living in Nakapiripirit-bordering Kenya), where thousands of girls aged 10 to 15 are circumcised and then forcefully married off. While in communities like Kapchorwa, where campaigns against the practice have been intensive, the community is slowly shunning FGM. However, new cases of FGM in the region show that FGM is on the rise. During the 2008 Christmas holiday, over 500 girls in Sebei region (Kapchorwa and Bukwo) faced the knife, an increase by 90% according to the local leaders. Since Global health research shows that FGM threatens the health of women and girls by increasing their vulnerability to HIV while further raising the risk of maternal and infant mortality, it ceases to be a small community affair. And if the community cannot see, they have to be made to understand.   This bill unlike others moved through very first. Give us some history to it. I moved it as a private members’ bill in April, 2009. I sought leave to move a private members bill as the rules of procedure require of us. We had a first reading in August and it was sent to the committees for further discussions. It made its own consultations, made amendments and prepared final report and in December, parliament passed it. It moved through very first because we had the support of the deputy speaker who is also a woman advocate and passionately opposed to FGM. I also keenly tracked the progress. The mover must keep a keen interest in tracking the progress of the bill. Most bills are moved by government ministries who table the bills and forget about them. I was not only in touch with the affected communities but also the ministry of gender labour and social development and the committee on gender, culture and labour which was handling the bill. We were also lucky because the committee was not overloaded. It is the reserve of the speaker, at his or her discretion and wisdom to refer a particular bill to a particular committee. The bill went to a less busy committee unlike the legal committee which has so many bills to handle. FGM was found to be culturally rooted so it was sent to the gender and culture committee, which happens not to be so busy like the legal committee which is loaded with bills to scrutinise.   The committee had time to expeditiously handle the bill. Besides, there was already consensus locally and nationally to have a bill outlawing FGM. Even when the committee members went to the affected communities to assess, the demand for the bill was overwhelming. Lastly, it was a small bill. Consultations were not prolonged, and were not diversionary. Every one appreciated that it was critical to outlaw the practice. In fact it is one of the issues in the recent past that brought cohesion in the house.   But local leaders say they were not involved and hence cannot own the bill? That is not true. We began our consultations in 2007 and the area local leaders and members of parliament have been part and parcel of the bill’s development process. Initially, they were cowardly thinking that people opposed it and it would cost them votes. But they later came out openly to support it when they realised it was wiser to support it because the communities wanted it.   Are you still tracking the progress of your developments? Do the communities understand the implications of the bill? Well, we are still waiting for the presidential assent to put the bill into law but the preparations are dump, just by Parliament’s passing of the bill. The development was received positively and the communities know that it is criminal to practice FGM now. There is no hype about the circumcision. The law has already had an impact. Apparently, pro-FGM activists in the area are guarding the mutilators and plan to cut the girls at night and very early in the morning. That shows you that they are aware of our attempts to stop the practise. We are now planning to undertake serious education campaigns in the communities about the implications of the law so that they know what it means and the consequences. Not that we are threatening them. We are particularly training and sensitising the police and the judiciary to bring them on board to apprehend the law breakers. We shall be ready by the end of this year. Any challenges so far? Porous borders. The local ‘surgeons’ may lay down their tools only for their colleagues to cross over and provide the service. And these are regarded in high esteem, like expatriates of sorts. They even charge more because of the high demand. The girls may cross to neighbouring countries particularly Kenya, get circumcised and return. Nevertheless, the bill still handles such extra territorial issues. You are still liable to the offenses stipulate in the bill, as long as you are on Ugandan soil. The other challenge is that the people who cut the girls argue that its an income generating activity thus we have to find hem alternative sources of income. We have already agreed with the ministry of gender that the mutilators are given alternative income generating activities. We are setting up heifer and poultry projects so that they have something to fall back to.   Who is funding all these activities? We have so far received sh200m for sensitisation from the government but most of the money is from UNFPA, the Netherlands embassy and UNICEF. We are still asking government to come in and own the bill by funding the consequent activities and developments. UNFPA and UNICEF particularly launched a joint programme to accelerate the end of FGM by 2012. The five-year programme (January 2008-2012) costing a whooping $43,572,405 (about sh82,787,569,500) is a regional initiative being implemented in 17 African nations.   Uganda, which is grouped with Kenya will benefit from $4,032,000 (about sh7,660,800,000) block funding in the programme that will see 40% reduction in specific communities where the programme is implemented and with at least one country declared FGM free. We hope that by 2015, when we shall be analysing our progress in addressing the MDGs, we should be at zero level.>>>>   > WHAT IS FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION? FGM involves partial or total removal of the external female genitalia (clitoris). It is commonly practiced as a cultural passage to womanhood. The practice has been found to cause immense pain, bleeding, infection and abscess plus, shock and sometimes leading to death. It is grossly harmful to women’s reproductive health. The World Health Organisation estimates that about 100 million to 140 million girls and women have been circumcised while another three million are at risk of being circumcised each year, globally. The global body recognises that the practice is extremely painful and traumatising, and can result in prolonged bleeding, a higher risk of HIV infection, infertility and even death.