Early this year, about six writers from Uganda Women Writers’ Association (FEMRITE) armed themselves with notebooks, tape recorders and cameras to record women’s voices in Kapchorwa where female genital mutilation (FGM) is practiced. Two Ethiopian women stories were also recorded in the collection. The product of women experiences is a book; Beyond the Dance, which captures the details and engages readers in the personal stories, personalizes FGM and imparts that this practice must end now.

Beyond the Dance is a vital tool that FEMRITE uses as a campaign against FGM and this book can be used by policy makers in and out of Uganda to influence change. Although the Uganda’s constitution prohibits FGM, communities in Kapchorwa, Kamuli, Tororo and Masindi the practice is still a cherished and an integral part of their culture. There are eleven testimonies in the collection depicting varying experiences but they all revolve around the same axis: the inhumanity of FGM. According to the editor of the collection, Violet Barungi ‘tradition shrouds the practice in mystery and superstition, in order to make women more compliant and subservient to archaic and irrelevant societal norms that don’t take their welfare into consideration.

Women call for external support to end the practice. Amina Buraimu who was once a skilful and cutter in Kapchorwa has now turned against the practice – in the story, Do Not Count on Me by Betty Kituyi, Amina appeals to the government to assist her to start an income generating activity to sustain her. To the girls who are eager to get circumcised, Amina says ‘Do not wriggle your waists counting on me because I am no longer a circumciser. If a circumciser who has reaped from the business is willing to stop the business then the others should read stories like The Woman in Me by Bananuka Jocelyn Ekochu where Judith who is now permanently crippled narrates how she, her cousin and a friend were circumcised in 1976. The two women died of complications relating to circumcision and Judith is afraid she will be next. In Hilda Twongyeirwe’s The Intrigue, Yemo wonders if other women enjoy sex. For her sex has always been painful ‘since I got married ten years ago, I have never enjoyed sex. To – date, I still bleed every time my husband and I meet. No matter how many times we have done it, no matter what we do, it never ceases to hurt’

FEMRITE recorded the women’s voices so that everyone join in the fight against FGM and reclaim women’s rights so that women can live a normal life as their creator made them. ‘This change of attitude will need wide and persuasive sensitization of the affected communities, facilitation by effective legislation, practical support and protection of FGM victims and encouragement of civil society organizations and other support agencies’ says Violet Barungi.

Written by Beatrice Lamwaka, FEMRITE

Beyond the Dance is available at FEMRITE, Plot 147 Kira Road, at 10,000 shillings only