Police arrest five for practicing female circumcision
Students perform a skit campaigning against female genital mutilation during the International Day of Zero Tolerance on Female Genital Mutilation marked at Kerio Valley Boys Secondary School on February 6, 2016. Five women were arrested in Laikipia for participating in female circumcision. PHOTO | JARED NYATAYA | NATION MEDIA GROUP
What you need to know:
- Among those arrested were three women aged between 21 and 32 years who had undergone the cut.
- Two others aged 78 and 61 years were arrested for carrying out the cut and helping the women to go through the healing process.
- According to Laikipia West Deputy County Commissioner Samwel Kiarie, eleven women had undergone the rite but police officers only managed to arrest three of them.
Police in Rumuruti have arrested five women for engaging in Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) practices in Lorian village in Laikipia West.
Among those arrested were three women aged between 21 and 32 years who had undergone the cut.
Two others aged 78 and 61 years were arrested for carrying out the cut and helping the women to go through the healing process.
The local administration, accompanied by police officers stormed homes where the rite had been carried at and managed to arrest three of the women who had been circumcised, the owner of the house and the traditional doctor who had applied the cut.
According to Laikipia West Deputy County Commissioner Samwel Kiarie, eleven women had undergone the rite but police officers only managed to arrest three of them.
“We received a report from a local administrator that 11 women had already undergone the cut before we made the arrests. Eight other managed to escape but police are still pursuing them in a nearby village where they are believed to be hiding,” said Mr Kiarie.
The arrests were made in line with the Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation Act which criminalizes FGM. The Act provides for a three year jail term and a fine of not less than two hundred thousand shillings for those found guilty of committing or abetting the offence.
Lorien Chief Mr Jackson Cheruiyot who alerted the county commissioner’s office said he received information about the women through the Nyumba Kumi initiative.
All the three were married women from the Kalenjin community and were forced to undergo the rite by their husbands due to some cultural pressure that come with the age-set system of the community, according to the local administrator.
Elsewhere in Nakuru, six women were on Tuesday charged at a Nakuru court with abetting Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).
The suspects were prosecuted in a closed court room and showed up while scantly covered in pieces of animal skins.
They appeared before Chief Magistrate David Kemei and were accused of conducting the illegal practice in Koilonget Village in Mauche, Narok County on November 28.
