Focus on Female Genital Mutilation

Despite the criminalisation of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in Kenya in December 2001, many communities continue to carry out the traditional practice, and attitudes towards it in much of rural Kenya are changing only slowly, according to a local nongovernmental organisation. "The culture of circumcising women is entrenched among most women and young girls living in rural Kenya where many people still highly value female circumcision despite efforts by the government, churches and civic groups to stamp out the practice," Rosemary Moraa, programme manager in charge of harmful traditional practices at Maendeleo ya Wamawake Organisation (MYWO) told IRIN on 23 January. According to Moraa, MYWO has been at the forefront of efforts to eradicate FGM, which involves the removal of all or part of the external female genitals. Moraa oversees some projects that take young women through alternative rites of passage in parts of Kenya where FGM - which many call female circumcision - is traditionally viewed as a part of the passage from childhood into womanhood. The Kenyan parliament on 29 November passed the Children Bill 2001, the first comprehensive child law in the country and an attempt to bring national law in line with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Bill, which includes measures to prohibit FGM, was approved by Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi on 31 December. In a speech marking Jamhuri (Independence) Day on 11 December, Moi said the circumcising of girls under the age of 17 was now a crime punishable by at least a year in jail. "Anyone found circumcising a girl of 16 will go straight to jail but for girls above the age of 16 years, it is their choice to be circumcised or not," the BBC quoted Moi as saying in December. "Should they not want to be circumcised, they shall also be protected by the new law," he added. Though its enactment came late, the Bill was a "gigantic step" in the improvement of the lives of children in Kenya, Denise Shepherd-Jones, a communications officer at the UNICEF Kenya Country Office told IRIN in December 2001. "The presidential directive and the new law gave our efforts fresh impetus but the practice still went on throughout the December festive season because people’s attitudes are yet to be changed," Moraa told IRIN. Much as opponents of circumcision say it is painful, outdated, and carries health risks, criminalising the practice has still not deterred some traditionalists, Moraa added. "In some communities like the Pokot, the practice is so engraved on the minds of the people that some men insist on marrying only circumcised women," said Moraa. "This is because it is believed that the uncircumcised women are wont to engage in adulterous behaviour." "It is a pity that some girls too accept the argument, believing they cannot get husbands if they are not circumcised," Kenneth Wafula, Executive Director of the Eldoret-based Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (CHRD) observed. In Eldoret, western Kenya, an additional impediment to the efforts of anti-FGM organisations is the fear for many women of dealing with communities which often stigmatise uncircumcised women and view them as cowards, Wafula added. Wafula has proposed that the initiates of the alternative rites of passage obtain permanent court injunctions restraining their parents or guardians from later on forcing them to be circumcised. In December last year, the 'Daily Nation' newspaper reported that medical staff in Kisii District Hospital, western Kenya, had been performing FGM. The report sparked criticism from anti-FGM lobbyists who argued that performance of FGM by medical professionals could legitimise it, local news agencies reported at the time. "The practice causes chronic infections, intermittent bleeding, abcesses, small benign tumours of the nerve which can result from clitoridectomy and excision," Dr Godwin Mzenge, Executive Director of the Family Planning Association of Kenya (FPAK), which was among the lobby groups that criticised some of the staff at Kisii, was quoted as saying. He added that the use of a single instrument to circumcise several girls without sterilisation could cause spread of the HIV virus. Kenya's 1998 demographic survey, cited by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), has estimated that 38 percent of Kenyan women aged between 15 and 49 years have undergone FGM. Among Kisii women in western Kenya, FGM prevalence reached 97 percent, the survey estimated. "Most of the projects that take young women through alternative rites of passage are dubbed 'circumcision by words', and entail teachings from older women on how the young girls can become the best mothers and wives," Moraa said. The MYWO project in Kisii has achieved some success by drawing on the model of "circumcision by words", but also goes further by actually challenging the gender-based teachings of circumcision, Moraa added. "With all the conflicting interests pertaining to female circumcision coming into play, my experience in the various areas where the practice is part and parcel of the people’s cultural tapestry shows that the real solution and eradication of this practice lies in changing people’s attitudes and mindsets," concluded Moraa.