Laws and activism will not stop female circumcision, so why not change tack?

Dear friend and columnist Joyce Nyairo will forgive me for straying into her domain — culture. She is the most articulate cultural commentator that I know of, and I feel timid to invade her forte.

Yet, the unprecedented attention paid to female genital mutilation (FGM) in recent days obliges me to offer my penny’s worth on a practice I have been following from 1970, when I first encountered a circumcised girl at Alliance Girls High School. The Form One girl from Runyenjes, Embu, talked dispassionately about her experience.

Fast-forward to 1972, and as a pupil teacher at Ichuni Girls Secondary in Kisii, I visited a DO, whose two beautiful daughters had just been circumcised. I remember the pride with which the administrator introduced the girls.

Then in September 1982, I met female circumciser Naimeko in Maralal, Samburu. Besides posing for a photograph with her and the local chief, Naimeko became the first-ever female circumciser that I interviewed for the Nation. That a Kenya News Agency photographer took the picture testifies to the “innocence” of the practice then.

Come the 1985 UN Decade for Women Conference in Nairobi, and FGM emerged as a harmful traditional practice to be eradicated. It did not die, and in December 1990, I witnessed and filed a story on an FGM ceremony at Chemche Village, a stone’s throw from Bungoma Town.

HALLOWED RITE

The pride of the pubescent girls as they danced the night away clad in brand new red skirts and white T-shirts, as young suitors crowned their future brides with white caps, testified to the hallowed place of the female cut among the Sabaot.

Not so long after the anti-FGM law of 2010 was enacted, I listened bemused as a young DO in Kuria scoffed at the much-hyped alternative rites of passage: “The girls go for T-shirts, and after that, they head straight for the cut.”

This long-winded preamble only seeks to contextualise FGM as a time-honoured cultural ritual for its practitioners, which despite its harmful effects, might not be killed by mere legislation. On Tuesday, we carried a story titled: “Our girls must undergo the cut, elders declare”. More than 2,000 elders from nine Samburu clans had resolved that circumcision of girls must continue.

Problem is, the declaration was not made in some cave; it followed three days of talks at Kisima Primary School in Samburu Central. If the law had any teeth, that was the time to round up and prosecute the 2,000 elders.

Nobody dared to do that, confirming that it will take more than legislation to end FGM.

RESIDENTS THREATEN POLICE

Only recently, the media reported how the efforts of Administration Police officers to rescue girls from being circumcised in Elgeyo Marakwet were repulsed by residents, who threatened to crush the law enforcers with boulders! Ironically, that was in the home area of Mrs Linah Jebii Kilimo—a renowned crusader against the female cut and chairperson of the newly formed Anti FGM Board.

All this should worry the UN Population Fund, which has rolled out a massive anti-FGM campaign. During the Samburu meeting, leaders, including Woman Representative Maison Leshoomo and Nominated Senator Naisula Lesuuda, were locked out and when they were finally allowed in for the closing ceremony, nobody dared to condemn female circumcision. Why? FGM is deeply-rooted among Kenyans, with the latest studies indicating that it is on the rise.

So, despite UNFPA’s crisp-clear and factual messages — that “The rich also cry when FGM is done in hospitals” — that it destroys, kills, causes poor health, school dropouts, early child and forced marriage, forced intimacy, unwanted pregnancies and adultery... the cut is going to be with us for a while yet.

It’s wishful thinking to imagine our women leaders, or any of our political leaders, rescuing girls from the cut. They have 2017 votes to woo and disparaging FGM is the surest way to be bundled out.

Is it not about time we thought outside the box for more realistic ways of ending FGM? Isolated jailing of the odd female circumciser, mostly after the initiate bleeds to death, is proving futile.

Report any case of FGM to the police or chief? Yes, to enforce the law, but who will bell the cat?

Ms Kweyu is Revise Editor, Daily Nation. ([email protected])