While some older women do so because of social pressure, girls are often forced: “Many are accosted on the road, pushed into bushes and forcibly (mutilated) without their parents’ consent. They are then forced to parents to pay for it.
Some girls who run away from home to escape FGM end up in the Catholic parish of San Kizito, from where they are referred to a shelter, kilometers from the parish. Father Amós has already sent 75 girls who were subjected to this practice to the shelter to protect them from forced marriages.
“I have lost count of the girls I brought to the shelter to protect them from FGM,” she said, adding: “My deepest desire has been to keep the girls here with me, but I have nothing. No dormitory, no facilities, no food for them.”
This week, Father Amós continued, “it is the turn of the youth, who attend a seminar on the parish premises. We try to educate them against the dangers of FGM, while keeping them practically safe within our reach. But we know that with more facilities we can keep them safer here.”