It takes a village to save a child.

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KAMPALA  – Uganda will pass a law banning female genital mutilation, which is rampant among pastoralist tribes in the country’s eastern region, the president said in a statement Friday.

“The way God made it, there is no part of a human body that is useless,” President Yoweri Museveni told a gathering in the eastern Karamoja district.

“Now you people interfere with God’s work. Some say it is culture. Yes, I support culture but you must support culture that is useful and based on scientific information,” he added.

The president also dismissed any defense of FGM as a “cultural” practice, calling it dangerous not only to women but also to the babies they may later have trouble bearing. According to the Guardian, he also “pledged to help provide an alternative source of income for women who earn a living circumcising girls.” 

The event also featured 300 girls taking an oath never to undergo the procedure.

Of course, Uganda is not the first nation – in Africa or elsewhere — to ban the practice; though President Museveni had been hailed as a member of a new generation of African leaders helping bring an end to the autocratic rule of so-called “big men” throughout the continent, this move hardly makes Uganda some sort of epicenter of women’s or human rights. Plus, where such bans do exist, a wide gap often remains between enactment and enforcement. Real change will depend on grassroots education efforts by locals guided by local organizations — as in Senegal, Burkina Faso, and The Gambia where, one by one, communities are publicly declaring an end to the practice.

Last year, the United Nations passed a resolution that called female genital mutilation a violation of the rights of women and said it constituted “irreparable, irreversible abuse.”

The resolution also said female circumcision increases the risk of HIV transmission, as well as maternal and infant mortality. The UN estimates that between 100 million to 140 million worldwide have undergone the practice.

This story is filed under: Lifestyle

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