An argument is raging in Uganda’s mountainous district of Mbale where many people are against rewarding girls for keeping their virginity as long as possible. These Mbale people, known as Bagisu, are a colourful community.
Across the border in Kenya they are called Bukusu and speak the same language. Like their Bukusu brothers, the Bagisu of Uganda have the most elaborate male circumcision in the world, possibly compensating for the many Ugandan communities that do not circumcise boys traditionally.
To understand how special the Bagisu sexuality is, the Uganda Tourism Board last year decided to make their annual traditional circumcision ceremony a unique selling point for the country’s cultural tourism. Now, the sub-county leader Chairman Martin Shaka has run into trouble with sections of the people he leads for a strange plan he has for the girls.
He has launched a reward scheme to girls aged between 15 and 18 who will be found to have maintained their virginity. The reward items will comprise a package of assorted scholastic materials. Mr Shaka revealed to a recent stakeholders’ meeting that he has already made arrangements with a medical team that will subject reward claimants to a quick test to confirm their virginity before accessing the chairman’s goodies.
CONTROVERSIAL SCHEME
But child rights activists want to lynch the chairman. And they are being backed by HIV activists as well. They say the rewards for virginity are discriminatory and stigmatising those persons who are not virgins. Moreover, they argue, that many girls lose their virginity due to rape and not willingly.
But Chairman Shaka has stuck to his guns and vows to proceed with the rewards. He says the reward scheme will help girls remain longer in school by curbing teenage pregnancies. He even adds, ambitiously, that it will lead to the creation of a generation of virgin girls before they enter marriage.
If today you go to Mbale town, once reputed to be the cleanest urban centre of East Africa, this is the debate you will encounter among the social workers and activists. Mbale seems to be the wrong place for a right scheme, or the right place for the controversial scheme.
Those sisters from Mbale are reputed to better than the rest of us, so I am told, and I say it with envy. It is not like another community that I cannot name for legal reasons where women are said to be readily available! The ones from Mbale are simply said to be more skilled than the rest us of. So it is not clear how they will maintain that superiority edge if they are restrained from training and practice by the chairman’s reward.
