Butiama and Mugumu safe houses receive girls who are fleeing from FGM. During cutting season, which usually happens in school holiday/vacation time to allow the girls time to ‘recover’, there is an increase in cases of FGM and this often leads to desperate girls escaping their families on foot, some to our safe houses. In Tarime, there are two main clans that are running the FGM practice, Wairege and Bamera.
During the latest cutting season, there was testimony from one girl who had to undergo an early marriage. She explained that she stopped going to school and got married when she was 16 years old, because her father wanted to get cows as a source of income. She gave words of inspiration for parents and girls, “People should stop thinking that girls are a source of income because by doing that many dreams of girls are killed.”
