A portrait of the gender challenges in Bukwo

With help from non-governmental organisations, communities in Bukwo district are fighting alcoholism and domestic violence that has led to many of the problems faced by girls and women. The fight against female genital mutilation (now mainly practiced in secret) is still ongoing.

Jane Chebet, 58, Former cutter - Riwo subcounty 

I am a former cutter who stopped the practice in 2015. My grandmother was a cutter and I used to travel with her around the Sebei region during the circumcision period. She trained me. I took over the business from her in 2008 when she died. Traditionally and culturally, circumcision was meant to make our girls mature and ready for marriage. Usually, they were circumcised at 18 or 20 years before they got into contact with boys. A girl who was not a virgin bled profusely during circumcision. I used to charge Shs20,000 per girl I cut. I also received chicken, beer, and meat. However, for girls who were not virgins, I charged Shs50,000. Such girls were dangerous to handle because they would bleed a lot. I would cut 100 girls in a month. At the end of the season, I would find myself with a lot of money, alcohol, and chicken. I was wealthy. Most girls came to me eagerly because they wanted to get married.

There are nicknames for uncircumcised girls. They could not climb into a granary to pick food, enter a kraal to milk a cow, and they were not allowed to smear the house with cow dung. Among the Sabiny, only women perform these chores. In 2015, I gave my life to Jesus Christ and abandoned female genital mutilation (FGM). Additionally, with the laws from the government and training by non-governmental organisations, many of my peers have stopped cutting girls. Today, some of our girls travel to the Pokot region for circumcision. However, we are having dialogues with these people. The government promised to give cows to reformed cutters and build houses for them. However, this has not been done. Now, I know many cutters who have gone back to performing FGM in secret. It is their only way to make money.

Sabina Hope Aloko, 27 Bukwo Town Council Survivor of FGM 

I was living with my grandmother. When I was in Primary Seven, my grandmother told me I was going to get circumcised that year. I was scared. I consulted my friends and they told me that was a backward practice. They said I might die. However, my relatives said I would not get a good husband if I was not cut. I told my uncle about my fears and he insisted that I should undergo the knife because it was our culture. So, I ran away from home and went to live with an aunt until the circumcision season ended. When I returned to my grandmother’s home, she beat me and chased me away, saying I had ashamed her. No one wanted me. Even my uncles were ashamed of me. I began sleeping on the streets and soon, I was impregnated by a soldier. That was 2016, and I was 17. When I went back to my grandmother, she said she would circumcise me when I was delivering the baby.  

I ran away again and this time, I went to an organisation called Power to Youth. The lady I found there took me in. By the time I met her, I had decided to go home and face the knife. She tried to sensitise my grandmother about the dangers of FGM, in vain. She insisted that I had to be circumcised. Today, I sell tomatoes and secondhand clothes to survive. Sometimes, I regret that I disobeyed my grandmother. My peers who gave in to pressure and were circumcised, continued with their education and are now doing well, with good jobs. They have also married well. If I had been circumcised, I would have continued with my education and would probably be married to a good man. The father of my child does not provide for us. He always says he does not have money. I need financial help to start a serious business. 

Doreen Cheruto, Administrator, Kalyet Initiative Uganda  

I became pregnant when I was in Senior Three. I was 16. No one had spoken to me about the dangers of being so close to boys. They took advantage of me. To make matters worse, the boy who impregnated me was in Senior Five. My father was very tough, like a lion. There was no way I was returning home with that big stomach. I had to find somewhere to run to. I joined my sister in Kampala. She was waiting to join Makerere University. She introduced me to Wakisa Ministries, who took me in and catered for me during my confinement. After I delivered the baby at Mulago Hospital, they called my mother and advised her to give me a chance to go back to school by accepting to look after the two-week-old baby. She complied. Wakisa Ministries got a sponsor who enrolled me in Mackay Memorial College. I returned to Bukwo after I completed my course at the university.

I saw other girls going through the predicament of teenage pregnancy that I had experienced. In our culture, people fear to talk about sex to each other, let alone to children. I realised I had to talk to these girls and their parents. In 2019, together with a friend, Winnie Chemutai, we started Kalyet Initiative. Today, the organisation has an office building and five acres of land. So far, we have rescued several girls, one of them a 15-year-old who was seduced into roadside sex by a bodaboda rider after he gave her a mandazi.  We educate the girls until Senior Six. Some, depending on the availability of girls, go to university. We have 29 girls in secondary school, four in university, and five studying a tailoring course.

Peace Cherop, 18 Senior Four Bukwo Town Council Survivor of early marriage 

I got pregnant when I was in Senior One. I was 14. The man who was responsible for my pregnancy was a cow herder. He had defiled me. One day, late in the night, my mother sent me to the neighbourhood shop. On my way back, I came across five boys standing on the path. One of them grabbed me. Two weeks later, I realised I was pregnant. I was scared of telling my mother. I knew she would not understand me, but she got to find out anyway and sent me out of her home. I went to my grandmother’s place. While there, a boy came to visit us and said he was responsible for my pregnancy. He was the one who had defiled me and wanted to take me to his home. My grandmother was poor, so I agreed to go with this man. He was 20 and I was 14. I did not love him. I just followed him because of the situation we were in. However, he mistreated me.

He would beat me whenever I asked for necessities.  When I went into labour, I could not push the baby. We had to wait for a long time for the doctor to come from another health facility. I delivered through a caesarean section and that man left me in the hospital. He never bothered to come back. It was my mother who picked me up and took me back to her home. She did not treat me well, even when I apologised to her for getting pregnant. When the baby was six months old, my mother told me about an organization called Kalyet Initiative Uganda and instructed me to join their classes. We were sensitised about teenage pregnancy and its dangers. The organization took me back to school and now, I am in Senior Four. In hindsight, I know that I should have gone to the police after the defilement instead of crying quietly at home. I should have also informed my mother. Because of my experience during delivery, I want to become a surgeon.

Gloria Cherop 25 Kapsawe village Was a teenage mother  

I gave birth to my first child in 2014 when I was 16. I was a very sexually active adolescent and I could not control myself. A boy in Senior Five impregnated me. We lived in the same neighbourhood. However, he denied responsibility for the pregnancy. My parents chased me out of their home. If he had accepted responsibility, I would have been married to him today. With time, though, my parents softened and I went back home, although I lacked many necessities.

After giving birth, I returned to school. After Senior Four, I took up a tailoring course because my parents did not have the means to further my education. In 2020, I got pregnant again. The man was an alcoholic and drug addict. He promised me many things but when I went to his home, he treated me badly. He used not to feed me. I returned to my mother’s home with my children. I now depend on whatever I earn from repairing people’s clothes to pay school fees and feed my children. I have learned to be patient and to take time to know a man before I trust him. If another man came into my life, he would first have to visit my parents and my church before I accept him. However, I am not looking for a man.

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