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{
    "id": 1031237,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1031237/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 192,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Nambale, ANC",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Sakwa Bunyasi",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2511,
        "legal_name": "John Sakwa Bunyasi",
        "slug": "john-sakwa-bunyasi"
    },
    "content": " Thank you, Hon. Speaker. I was fidgeting here wondering what had happened. I have strong views on this even though I do not come from a community that practices FGM. I feel strongly that just like we had other practices that had specific gender biases, it may be useful to begin to focus on men. Apparently, the men who believe in this think that there is some premium obtained when a woman goes through FGM. If I was to express personal favouritism, I would say I am decidedly against people who have gone through that. I feel that they have diminished them in many ways, but this is not true of people from those cultures. They may have good reasons, accumulated over the centuries, but we need a strong movement that targets, not the women, but the men. Hon. Speaker, I remember in the last Parliament when an issue like this came up, some very senior people in the leadership of the House then became emotionally angry at any discussion that intended to restrain, reduce or restrict it. It means, therefore, that it has not in any way sunk. If that kind of strong belief is among men — who do not undergo that pain and who do not, themselves, have problems to live with those scars, visible or not visible — we are not going to win this battle and the resources will be wasted for a long time. Apart from criminalising it, which as we are told is hardly successful an indication that we are not diminishing it, we should have a programme that targets men’s continuous education. In the long term, people will realise that the benefits they seek in surgery can be obtained, I can assure you, through social interaction. I feel bad about the women in those communities that do this. It is a practice that we must find an alternative for. I would urge the doctors in this House to begin to look for ways and suggest to us what sort of reconstructive corrections can be made so that these women can live in a modern society without those scars. I thank you."
}