Impact of Female Genital Mutilation / Cutting On Girl Child Education Case Study in Mukura Kumi District, Eastern Uganda

ABSTRACT This research deals with female genital mutilation or cutting and its impact on girl child education in Suam sub county, Kumi District. This research ~ias being carried out because Kumi is one of the districts on the eastern part of Uganda that encompasses the sabiny speaking people who are known of practicing female genital mutilation. They do this as one of the ways of maintaining their culture and crossing over to a different age/set group and woman hood too. Some countries like Somalia and Sudan do it for public recognition. However, female genital mutilation/cutting (EGM/C) has been outlawed in Uganda because of its associated evils towards girl children and women’s education in suam Sub County and the country at large. The purpose and objective of the research was to determine whether there was a relationship between female genital mutilation and education of specifically girls and women. FGM/C is practiced for medical or non medical reasons. It involves a surgeon, the ‘~candidate” that is, the girl or woman to be circumcised and parents of the candidate or Elders. Some countries like Egypt would legalize it to the extent of doing it in a barber’s saloon not until one young girl died as a result. This then caused absolute abolition of FGM/C in Egypt. The government of the republic of Egypt coined it that FGM/C is not on the laws of Islam and is therefore illegally done with no ground to base on. FGM/C is measured in terms of the number of those who have undergone the practice, those who are yet to undergo (those at risk) and those who do not want to undergo the practice where as Girl and wdirien education is measured in terms of the level of education before one undergoes the practice, level of education after undergoing the practice and the level of education for those who were not cut and continued studying. Questionnaires were developed and distributed to the sample population. It comprised of various villages selected randomly. The target population were; the Elders (both male and female), young girls (aged 12-18) and married women. A total of 50 questionnaires were filled by the target population. Only 35 of the copies were returned there by achieving a response percentage of about 70. The result found out that there was a significant relationship between female genital mutilation/cutting and education of girls and women. Therefore, it could be inferred that female genital mutilation or cutting is strongly associated to the low levels of girls and women’s education in the areas of study. In deduction from the selected areas of study, this research has it that areas with low levels of education have a high percentage of mutilated females and vise versa.