31 December 2008
Kampala — Head held high and determination written all over her face, Chelangat was wrestled to the ground. Her legs were spread wide open before a grim woman in her late 60s poured a handful of yeast in her private parts. The yeast is meant to increase friction on her clitoris during the 'operation'.
Another woman pulled Chelangat's clitoris and labia and cut them off with a razor blade. The 16-year-old girl neither cried nor made any noise - things the Sebei believe bring shame to the family.
Chelangat's body remained motionless as blood gushed from her private parts and shouts of joy filled Kapkos village.
Chelangat was covered with a bed-sheet and taken to a nearby hut. Talking about the 'operation', Chelangat smiles and says: "I felt a lot of pain, but it is worth it." she adds.
Chelangat says before the 'operation', she was taken around the village, visiting her relatives. "This was the only way of informing them. We did the whole thing in just one night," she adds.
"We then went to the well and bathed to cleanse ourselves of any demons. An itching plant was then rubbed on my clitoris."
The plant is meant to make the clitoris swollen so that the 'surgeon' is able to hold it firmly.
Chelangat said the stigma she was experiencing from her community propelled her to undergo the 'operation'.
"Whenever I went to the well, other women always wanted me to be the last in the queue, saying I was still a girl," she adds. But Chelangat's father, Martin Chemonges, says the practice is optional in his family. "However, my daughter made me proud with her braveness during the ceremony.
"A girl who is circumcised fetches many cows because she is respected," he adds. Chelangat who is still at school said: "If a well-brought-up man comes with dowry for my father, I will go." she adds.
But her mother says she wants her daughter to continue with her education. "I tried to stop her from undergoing FGM but she resisted. Whenever a girl undergoes this thing, she immediately wants to get married," Chelangat's mother, Alice, said. "It happened to me and I have regretted it for the rest of my life. If I had studied, I would be having a good job and a house."
She says she developed complications after circumcision. "I bled severely and my wound took three years to heal. If it had not been for mission doctors, I would have died."
Alice says REACH failed to eradicate the practice from Bukwo because they promised to give people many things after denouncing the culture, but they did not.
"My daughter was promised a scholarship to study in Kampala, but they did not come back," Alice adds.
Chelangat says: "We cannot allow people to use us to make themselves rich." She adds that if some people want to end circumcision, then they should continue with the sensitisation.
Chelangat also urges the Government to give scholarships to poor families to educate their daughters.
"It pains me when people come here saying they are fighting for our rights and yet they are making money out of us."
Read comments. Write your own.
Copyright © 2008 New Vision. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
It's their culture ! Why must Western people always have comment and why do they always try to forbid other people to do their own things ? In some african countries, because of their culture and the other sexual rules, girls and woman don't know the difference of having a clitoris or not. And they don't need it anyway for living, working, eating, having children...a.o. (And it is more hygienic being clean on their sexual parts) So what ? Let's do our own things in the West !