Kenya's No-Win War Against Female Genital Mutilation

By Tervil Okoko, Panafrican News Agency, 12 October 2000

Nairobi, Kenya - When the cup passed over her, Mary Githuma celebrated without realising then that the piece of luck would one-day turn out to be her undoing.

Mary, now 30, has to come to terms with the realities of being uncircumcised. She had conspired with a village friend of her age to escape the circumcision knife when they were about 20 years old.

The duo had fled to Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, when their parents insisted on the cut. They had hoped to find jobs even as housemaids.

But instead, Mary met John Muiruri, with whom she immediately fell in love, therefore making her need for a job unnecessary. "What's a job for when I have found the man of my dreams who wishes to marry me?" she reassured herself.

But after 10 years of marriage, something tragic happened to Mary's unbelieving: The couple quarrelled so badly over family finances that she had to flee to her parents' home in the interior.

But against all her expectations, her relatives found Mary guilty when the extended family deliberated on her predicament.

"It's because she is a kahii (an uncircumcised girl) that she lacks the wisdom to keep a family," her eldest uncle decided.

Mary's father added in affirmation: "We should remember that her uncle said the very same thing when this little girl gave birth to a Kitheya (child born to an uncircumcised mother)."

"And she did this outside wedlock."

"You people have no right to treat me like this!" Mary burst out as she sobbed and stormed out of the meeting at her father's house.

"I'm no longer a child, but a mother of several children." But Mary Githuma might have been wrong about her social status.

To her predominantly male relatives at the meeting, she was indeed a kid who could not be expected to know how to look after a husband, let alone run a household.

Among most Kenyan ethnic communities, circumcision is an examination one must pass to become an adult. Members of the few communities, like the Luo of western Kenya, who do not have to be circumcised, are considered immature regardless of age.

Such persons are therefore not expected to hold any social or political positions simply because they have not had the foreskins of the penis or clitoris cut off.

But a number of men from the non-circumcising ethnic groups are now opting to go for the knife for reasons of hygiene and health.

The question, however, is whether or not the women should go for what is now known as Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).

A number of women's lobby groups, including the Family Planning Association of Kenya (FPAK) and the Kenya chapter of the International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA), have called for the practice to be banned, arguing that it is barbaric and an anachronism.

But the fact that the government is pulling punches in outlawing the practice underscores the importance the tenaciously traditional Kenyan society attaches to it.

In 1996, after intense pressure from the more enlightened members of the Kenyan public, especially the women's lobby groups, the government decided to refer the matter to the male- dominated parliament.

What baffled most Kenyans, however, is that the motion was defeated overwhelmingly, not because of the male dominance, but because even some of the women members of parliament voted against outlawing FGM.

One female MP, Catherine Nyamato from the Kisii ethnic community, who put so much premium on the practice, argued for its perpetuation.

Like other pro-FGM lobbyists, she argued that the "practice reduces women's sexual drive and therefore promiscuity, premarital sex and adultery."

In fact, among certain communities, especially Mary Githuma's Meru and Nyamato's Kisii, even educated men prefer to marry circumcised women for a similar reason.

The truth of the matter, however, is that there is a negligible difference in the incidence of family breakups due to promiscuity among married women between those communities that circumcise women and those that do not.

A recent study carried out by FPAK among the Meru found out that most of the parents, and indeed their daughters, opt for FGM just to toe the line. "An uncircumcised woman is considered a child, it does not matter how old she may be," Vindele M'chokera and Edith Mururu, who conducted the study, noted.

Due to tradition and the stigmatisation of uncircumcised women, FGM is till very popular among certain Kenyan communities as the study discovered that its popularity rate among the Meru was still 90-99 percent despite the unabated campaign against the practice.

The Njuri Cheke or Meru council of elders supports the practice as the only way to initiate a person into adulthood. "We must respect our tradition. The girl must be taught how to take care of herself hygienically," the study quotes a council member as saying during the survey.

He argued that Meru men prefer to marry circumcised women for the similar reasons, and that this is why the girls choose to go for FGM.

Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi has himself taken up the gauntlet against the practice, speaking against it during nationwide rallies.

He argues that it is a health risk and an injustice against women.

"The practice does not serve the same health or sanitation purpose as it does in men," he contends. Dirty and unhygienic instruments are used during the circumcision.

And in this age of HIV and AIDS, this is a real risk. Quite a number of deaths have been reported in Kenya as a result of the practice. FGM methods vary from community to community and from country to country.

For instance in Sudan, the practice involves the removal of all the essential parts of a woman's genitalia, including the clitoris and the labia majora and the labia minora.

Another method, prevalent in Kenya, involves the removal of only the clitoris. Yet another calls for the removal of all the external parts of the genitalia and then stitching up the vaginal orifice to reduce its size for a man's increased pleasure.

In Djibouti, Mali, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Ethiopia and Sudan, nearly all the women undergo FGM although it is known to lead to infertility or the death of either the new-born or the mother, or both, during birth.

The UN Population Fund and the International Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women have outlawed FGM, and called on all states to effectively eliminate the practice and all forms of traditional rites that violate women's rights.

Like all abhorrent habits, it is likely that female genital mutilation will die hard in Kenya, as the only hope for the abused Kenyan woman is mass education against its inherent dangers.