Impact of Female Genital Mutilation On Girl-Child Education Case Study in Kanvumu Bukedea District, Eastern Uganda

ABSTRACT This research deals with female genital mutilation and its impact on girl..child education in Kanyurnu sub-county, Bukedea district. This research was being carried out because Bukedea is one of the districts in 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 mutilatiop (FGM) has been outlawed in Uganda of its associated evils towards girl children and women’s education in Kanyumu 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 is practiced for medical or non-medical reasons. It involves a surgeon, the “candidate” that is, the girt 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 ~ result. This then caused absolute abolition of FGM in Egypt. The government of the republic ~f Egypt coined it that FGM is not on the laws of Islam and is therefore illegally done with no ground to base on. FGM 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 whereas girl and women education is measured in terms of the level of practice and the level of education of 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 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 and education of girls and women. Therefore, it could be inferred that female genital mutilation is strongly associated to the low levels of girl’s and women’s education in this area of study.in deduction from the selected areas of the study, this research has it that with low levels of education have a high percentage of mutilated females and vice versa