Circumcisers of girls in Lamu have joined the fight against female genital mutilation.
FGM has been practiced for decades among the Boni and Orma communities and was seen as an automatic right of passage for all girls transitioning into adulthood.
Girls as young as five years had to undergo circumcision before being married off to men who are mostly 10 times older than them.
The outlawed practice led to a spike in the rate of school dropouts in the region.
But with the circumcisers now fighting against FGM, the story is expected to change.
Most said they did it for money, as each girl brought in for circumcision would earn them between Sh500 and Sh2,000, depending on the age and complexity of the process.
Villages such as Bulto, Dide Waride in Witu division and Bargoni in Hindi division now have anti-FGM crusaders and not circumcisers.
On the frontline of the war on FGM are chiefs, assistant chiefs, Nyumba Kumi officials, elders, community mobilisers and the reformed circumcisers.
The former circumcisers have invested their little savings in small businesses. Others have become farmers.
They also received financial support from the government to enable them to start alternative businesses and ditch the dangerous practice.
As 2021 comes to a close, community mobilised initiatives have seen FGM practices in the hotspot areas drop by over 95 per cent, according to The FGM Watch Initiative-Lamu Focus.
Dide Waride chief Abdi Bocha said the government started by targeting traditional circumcisers and sponsoring them to conduct alternative economic activities like vending milk, fish mongering and selling groceries.
“They are all women and we knew that getting them to stop without offering an alternative would be impossible. That’s why we introduced them to other activities to fetch them an income as they quit this one,” Bocha said.
Reformed circumciser Rahabu Athman, 72, has practiced FGM for close to 30 years and because of her age, she said she cannot remember the exact year but knows it was in the early 90s.
She said she wants to use the little time she has left on earth to right all the wrongs she did through FGM.
“I was ignorant and I didn’t know that FGM damages a woman. I didn’t go to school and so I just did what I did to make money as I had no job. But now, if they bring me a girl, I take her to the chief’s office because I want to make a change,” Athman said.
Dullow Mahammad, 54, said some girls bled to death after undergoing the cut.
“My youngest victim was aged four. I told the mother she was too young but she was persistent. I have done it all by I'm changed now. I have undergone training and now I understand that there are other rites of passage for girls other than FGM," she said.
These reformists have now taken it upon themselves to lead sensitisation campaigns in rural communities on the implications of FGM.
Despite the campaigns, FGM is still secretly practiced. The crusaders have intensified their campaigns this festive season to save girls from being mutilated.
Edited by A.N
