Outlawed but unbowed: FGM refuses to yield

Young primary school girls in Kuria East District. Most of these girls still undergo Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), even though the practice has been outlawed in Kenya. Photo by Silas Nyanchwani

KURIA, Kenya- Little Elsa Mwita is only nine years old and everything seems to be going wrong in her world. The beautiful, shy-faced girl is the butt of all sickening jokes in a public primary school in Kuria East District. The standard three pupil is a loner at school since no girl wants to be associated with her. Her only problem is that she is not circumcised.

“Wananitusi nikicheza nao. Wengine hata wananipiga. (They abuse me when I play with them. Some even beat me),” she tells me sobbing. Most of her peers have undergone female genital mutilation, and they are proud of it. But for Elsa, she must learn to live like an outcast for the time being.

As bad persistent cultural practices go, none is as repugnant and violating as Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). Over the last decade, the clamour to root out the problem among communities that practice it has borne some fruit, but only just. While some communities in Kenya, especially in Central Kenya have been able to weed out the problem, many in the Rift Valley and Nyanza are yet to abandon the practice.

The Kuria, the Abagusii and the Maasai particularly seem to relish the practice, and it might take more than making it illegal for the rural folk to understand its full impact. The Kuria are virtually practicing it as if it has never been outlawed. Among the Abagusii, it is still done, albeit in sworn secrecy. For the Maasai, who have been the target of every single NGO preaching against it, it seems impossible to abandon the culture.

“Who will marry a woman who is not circumcised?” asks Emanuel Emmanuel, 36, a father of four; two boys and two young girls. He lives in Trans-Mara where every December, young girls are circumcised under the nose of the government. While it is done in the open, it is always a clever disguise. They claim it is an alternative rite of passage marked with song and dance but that is merely a ruse to allow for the cut to be performed.

“I had to be circumcised in order to be married. Besides it is a cultural demand,” says a 16-year-old Emma Nkaisery, who is already married. That is a common line across Trans-Mara. Every time you explain the possible dangers arising from FGM, they are quick to rationalise it culturally.

“We know the problem of unsterilized equipment, and we do take precaution in these days of HIV/AIDS,” a male primary school teacher tells me. In spite of his position in society, he is not entirely opposed to the whole idea of FGM. You would think he should know better, but he also talks about the need to” guard our culture at all costs”, the dangers of the practice notwithstanding.

In the Kisii region where awareness level should be high, owing to relative exposure compared to the Maasai or the Kuria, they too have their justifications. Like the Kuria, they believe that if they circumcise their women, they can reduce their sexual excitement and thus reduce immorality. They argue that it makes the women tame and humble and less promiscuous.

Women picking tea in a village in Gucha District, Nyanza Kenya. Photo by Silas Nyanchwani.

“Young man, when you look at your mothers, they are responsible and act according to the society’s mores,” they tell me defiantly. “Look at the young women growing today,” they say adopting an accusatory tone.

Roselyn Kemunto, 32, a mother of five girls has circumcised all of them and has no regrets. She too has been sucked into the crude explanation of guarding their culture. “I don’t want to be the laughing stalk in the village, that of a big woman who refused to circumcise her daughters,” she says.

FGM is legally outlawed. Anybody caught can be convicted. But enforcing such a law in these regions is an impossibly difficult task, given that the authorities, mainly from the provincial administration, and religious leaders are privy to the happenings. They silently connive and approve the practice; though in public they might readily denounce it.

“It is difficult to forcefully tell people to abandon what they hold dear to their hearts; different approaches ought to be used,” says a district officer in Kisii, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “When you send your officers, or the chiefs to nail the culprits, they don’t do much because they too approve of it. Considering that it is done on minors who do not have a say, it might take time before these communities learn,” says the officer who comes from a community that does not practice FGM.

Roselyn Onduso, a community health worker who has done extensive research on the matter, in Western Kenya, attributes the FGM problem to the tendency to “cling to our culture even when it has nothing or little to offer.”

 She condemns the savage routine that is now secretly carried out. “There are immediate and long-term medical and psychological complications like bleeding and tetanus and infections like HIV where there is sharing of the equipment. In extreme cases there is vulva disfigurement and painful sexual intercourse in the future sex life of the girl. This might lead to marital problems. Psychologically, such women might suffer from anxiety attacks and depression,” says Ms Onduso. “Public education should be carried out through the media, churches and women organization. Civic knowledge is of imperative importance especially to ignorant mothers who don’t know the facts,”she adds.

Among her recommendations is to identify and educate opinion leaders, church leaders and women groups. She further recommends more research into the issue, especially the unrelenting attachment of the rural folk to such cultural practices.

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