1,200 girls aged between 10 and 16 were circumcised, leading to one death and hospitalisation of several others last month
Just as Anti-FGM board chairperson Linah Chebii Kilimo was receiving an award for her resilient fight against female genital mutilation last month, there were reports of a massive resurgence of the practice in her rural home in Elgeyo Marakwet County.
An estimated 1,200 girls aged between 10 and 16 were mutilated leading to the death of one of them and hospitalisation of several others.
This was the largest number of girls ever circumcised in the area in a decade and it clearly signified the resurgence of the vice that had somehow died down thanks to the work of several stakeholders.
“I am baffled by how and why my community has gone back to FGM even with all the work we have done to educate them on its dangers,” said Kilimo on her return from Mauritius where she won the Outstanding Women Leadership Award.
Like Kilimo, many are asking why FGM has returned with a vengeance within the Marakwet community to the extent that it’s now being done with impunity in complete disregard of the Anti-FGM Act.
Not even the presence of guns stopped angry villagers from taking the girls to face the cut. The villagers snatched a gun from a police officer, beat up a chief and another officer as they fought to have the teenage girls circumcised.
“It’s amazing how this cultural practice is entrenched within the Marakwet community. While some girls threatened to burn their parents’ homes if they were not taken for the cut, villagers were fighting to keep away the security officers sent to stop FGM,” said Deputy County Commissioner Hussein Alaso Hussein.
Alaso says the community conspired to keep the planned FGM acts a secret thus security agents failed to get intelligence about the plan.
Hundreds of women circumcisers also turned up, making it their largest harvest season ahead of the Christmas celebrations.
Governor for Elgeyo Marakwet Alex Tolgos at Singore Girls High School in the county. Most girls drop out of school due to FGM in the county
Each of them later went home with Sh500 per girl meaning, they earned a total of about Sh600,000.
In this community, the elders, women, youth and even the girls themselves support FGM and are ready to die for it. Even the chiefs, required to implement the Anti-FGM Act, secretly back it.
One of the chiefs was arrested for taking his own daughter to face the cut. But other chiefs in the area said their lives were in danger as they had been threatened with death should they speak against FGM.
Older women, including learned professionals who have gone through university education, also voluntarily joined the ceremony.
It’s believed that uncircumcised girls cannot get married and men in the community shun them.
Not even political leaders can dare publicly oppose FGM for one would be seen as going against the community and does not therefore deserve to be a leader.
Even after the more than 1,200 girls were cut, none of the elected leaders came out immediately to condemn the illegal practice.
“It’s a tricky issue for local leaders. In fact it’s political. We have to admit that FGM is a cultural practice valued by our community but we have to find a way of dealing with it,” said former Marakwet East MP Francis Mutwol.
An angry county commissioner for Elgeyo Marakwet Matilda Sakwa says she was shocked with how it happened and she heaped blame on men in the community for failing in their responsibilities.
“Nafikiri wanaume katika hii kaunti wameshindwa majukumu ya ndoa ndio wameamua kuamuru watoto wao wasichana wakeketwe. Kwani nini imefanyika tena ndio FGM ikarudi?
(I think men in this county have failed to perform their marital obligations and have consequently decided to fend off frustrations in allowing these innocent girls to be cut. After all, what caused the resurgence of FGM now?)
Sakwa said she understands that FGM is an entrenched cultural practice that would take time to eliminate, but she says that in Marakwet even the leaders, the elite, do not talk about it, making it even more difficult to fight it.
Kilimo, who literally ran away from home to escape FGM, admits that the recent mass mutilation of girls has eroded the gains that had been made to fight FGM.
In fact, she views the resurgence as a stab in the back at the time when she was being awarded.
“It simply served to ridicule my achievement and the reward I was given,” said Kilimo.
She says many community based organisations and NGOs which had been engaging in community sensitisation against FGM fizzled out due to lack of funding and strong resistance from the community.
“Now that even the leaders cannot dare speak about FGM and other groups have died out, the community thinks it’s the right thing to do,” said Kilimo.
Anti-FGM Board chairperson Linah Kilimo talking to elders at Tot in Marakwet during one of her sensitization meetings on FGM
She regrets that the latest round of circumcision led to death and hospitalisation of many girls but she hopes this will serve as a lesson to parents.
“FGM is primitive and retrogressive. It can lead to death, young girls get married off easily and their education is greatly eroded,” she said.
Sakwa agrees with Kilimo and says less than 20 per cent of girls in the community transit from primary to secondary schools, meaning many of them drop out of schools soon after undergoing the cut.
Some of the girls who bled profusely after being cut were dumped outside hospitals by parents afraid of being arrested.
But this does not dampen the spirit of the community to support FGM. Their belief in the cultural practice goes beyond a mere old age culture as even elders cite some unnatural phenomenon that triggered the spontaneous circumcision of girls that swept across the region.
One traditional circumciser was even blunt cautioning the media that a curse would befall journalists who report about FGM activities.
“What is this we are hearing on the radio about the ceremonies? Don’t you know that it is a taboo to talk about it? Take care lest you be cursed.”
She explained that the reason they circumcised the girls in large numbers was because of a communication from heavenly bodies through the stars in the sky.
“There was a unique occurrence of stars in the sky last week and according to elders, this indicated that time was right for a generation to come of age. We had to do it and who are you to challenge the universe or rather what you don’t understand?” said the circumciser.
With such entrenched beliefs, the women circumcisers ran across villages and ridges in Kerio Valley mutilating girls in a way Sakwa described as shameful.
Villages in Kerio Valley where the mass FGM activities took place
“These are human beings, you just don’t cut and dump them the way you are doing as if they are animals,” said Sakwa.
Some of the villages with the highest number of girls circumcised in the recent wave included Mokora, Kacheturgut, Kirawi, Katemuge,Kakisegei, Kipkirwon, Kaptul and Kwenoi. Others in Endo location included Koibirir, Kaben, Kowou,Kakisige, Karamwar and kaptoboko, Mungwo and Kimarich villages among others.
After they were cut, the girls were taken to secluded areas where they were protected by armed youth to keep away government officers.
The teenager who bled to death was a standard seven pupil at Chebilil primary school. Some villagers described her death as a mere accident that would be avoided in future.
“We regret her death but people do not stop building roads or buying cars because of accidents. FGM is here to stay,” said one elder who identified himself as Chebii.
Some of the minors who bled after the cut were admitted at St Benedictine Sister’s Chesong’och mission hospital.
Sister Bernadette Nzuve, the chief administrative nun, said the facility had for many years handled such cases.
Kilimo says her board has done more than enough to educate communities on the dangers of FGM.
“Indeed latest statistics indicate that FGM prevalence has dropped to about 21 per cent in about 15 counties where it takes place,” she said.
The resurgence of FGM in her Marakwet community is a worrying trend which Kilimo says requires political support.
“All is not lost. As a board we will intensify anti-FGM campaigns but we need more local CBOs to come up and help us. It’s time our leaders speak out and save our girls from such primitive acts which portray our community in bad light,” she says.
Kilimo has held many forums even with men in the area to try and change their mindset but the resistance is still quite high. “Once we are able to change the mindset of men we will be on the right track towards eliminating FGM,” said Kilimo.
Women Rights Institute CEO Mariam Suleiman says FGM is still rampant among communities in Marakwet and Pokot mainly because leaders, especially chiefs, support it.
“Some of the chiefs and local leaders condemn the act during day time but at night they even participate in planning meetings,” said Suleiman.
Last year, she says, more than 5,000 girls in Pokot and Marakwet underwent FGM. “More than half of them will not return to schools this year as they will have been married off,” she says.
Suleiman says anti-FGM campaigns have died in many areas mainly due to lack of funds to facilitate the community awareness activities by CBOs and NGOs.
“Even the anti-FGM board has no proper funding yet it’s the one to lead the campaigns,” said Suleiman.
She says very few parents and chiefs who defy the Anti-FGM Act get prosecuted and this emboldens perpetrators who believe nothing will happen to them.
But Sakwa says they have ordered a crackdown against parents and chiefs who condone FGM.
“FGM is a crime and those who engage in it will be arrested and prosecuted. No matter how long it takes we will have to fight FGM at all costs and eliminate it,” she said.