{UAH} SECRET MANY WOMEN WON'T TELL OUT IS THAT THEY LOVE MEN WITH FORESKIN

Circumcision still shunned in northern Uganda

Sizzling Entertainment

TUESDAY, 05 AUGUST 2014 23:15

WRITTEN BY ANDREW KAGGWA

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Mother-of-three Diana Akello, 23, calmly sits in queue waiting for the doctor. Like many of the women, she looks worried but constantly forces a smile.

Finally it is her turn. She hands the baby to a friend before dashing into the open door. A jolly Akello later emerges, hugging friends and other women yet to get in. It is the cervical cancer checkup, one of the activities taking place at the USAID/Northern Uganda Health Integration to Enhance Services (NU-Hites) camp at Ober health centre III near Lira town.

The PAP smear has given Akello the all-clear. The camp is also offering other services like immunization, counselling as well as Safe Male Circumcision (SMC), among others. The rumour in this community is that women whose husbands were not circumcised had more chances of being found with cervical cancer. Her husband being uncircumcised, Akello had cause to worry.

Just a room away is another room where six men are waiting to be circumcised; many of them are in their twenties. But while the mentality is changing among young men, older males' minds remain poisoned against circumcision. According to Dr Paul Onek, District Health Officer, Gulu, the northern region is very Christian and older men are resisting the practice and discouraging their sons too, because they believe circumcision is like conversion to Islam.

"Areas like these are lagging behind in the circumcision drive because of such misinformation," Onek says.

Last year, NU-Hites' target was to circumcise at least 60,000 men in the 15 districts they operate in, but only managed to get 30,000. But the fault is not entirely men's. Betty Acer, one of the women who turned up for a cervical cancer screening, said wives too have contributed to the misinformation.

She says there is a belief that after circumcision, men will get into risky sexual behaviour.

"Before, doctors spread the message that circumcision would reduce chances of catching HIV," she said.

She says, after facing the knife, some men went on rampage, having unprotected sex and infecting their spouses in the process, which put other wives off the procedure. Research has proven safe male circumcision to reduce risk of catching HIV by 60 per cent.

Jane Akello, a circumcision surgeon at Oteno health center in Alebtong remembers a man who was dragged out of the circumcision queue by his wife; "It seems he didn't discuss the decision with her and like many other women, she was suspicious of his [motives]."

Remmy Engora, 23, one of the men awaiting circumcision says older men feel embarrassed queuing up with younger boys and others are discouraged when they learn the procedure is at times done by female health workers.
"I have seen some change their minds after seeing me," Akello agrees.

NU-Hites in conjunction with Plan and USAID have drawn new strategies to get men to embrace the knife. Their target this year is to circumcise 150,000 men by October although less than half of that has been cut so far. The new approach looks at promoting the procedure as a lifestyle, rather than for its medical benefits.

"Men don't care about such things like saving wives from cervical cancer," says NU-Hites' Cosmas Musumali.

They want them to do it because it is trendy and depicts them as real men. Back at Ober health Centre, Diana Akello vows to advise her husband to come for the procedure.

"I can't go through such checkups again," she says while fastening her baby to her back.

kaggwandre@gmail.com

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