FGM survivors in Bukwo want to be considered PWDs

Bukwo, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Survivors of Female Genital mutilation (FGM) in Bukwo are flooding the office of the Resident District Commissioner-RDC demanding to be included on the list of Persons with Disabilities-PWDs.

Speaking to URN on Wednesday, Bukwo RDC Samuel Hashaka Mpimbaza, said that he receives not less than eight women daily demanding to be categorized as PWDs to enable them to benefit from programs targeting them.

“Everyday women who went through FGM come to my office with the demand to be recognized as people with disabilities because some of their body parts were cut,” he said. He however explains that this can only be handled by the Gender, Labor and Social Development Ministry, which is responsible for all categories of people.

Jemima Chelangat, one of the FGM survivors says that their life is not the same as that of the women who have not gone through the banned practice. “We have lost part of our body part due to cultural beliefs meaning that we are disabled somewhere and we can be put in the group of people with disabilities,” she said.

Patricia Cherotic, another FGM survivor says that some of them went through the practice by force and urged the government to consider them as PWDs. Prosy Chemutai, a Village Health Educator in Kabei sub-county in Bukwo district, said that many girls are still being cut adding that more efforts are still needed to fight the practice.

“We still have this practice continuing harming women and girls and there is a need for more sensitisation to eliminate it,” she said. FGM is the partial or total removal of the female clitoris. According to the elders from Pokot, Sebei and Moroto where FGM is practiced, women who undergo the practice remain faithful to their husbands.

Apart from Uganda, the practice is also carried out in some African and Asian countries. In 2010, Uganda banned the practice and instituted a ten-year prison sentence for those found conducting FGM and a life sentence once the victim dies.

According to Dr. Patrick Sagaki, the Medical Superintendent of Amudat hospital, FGM results in many complications in the woman’s private parts such as urinary retention, injury to the adjacent tissue of the urethra, perineum and rectum, fracture or dislocation resulting from forceful holding down of a woman or girls due to the resultant pain.

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