FGM creeping back, thriving and abetted by secrecy in Kuresoi

Female genital mutilation is creeping back, even flourishing in a culture of secrecy, underground bloodletting and a conspiracy of silence.

Though it was declared illegal in 2011, the practice thrives —some say it's rampant — in Kuresoi North and South constituencies in Nakuru county.

The cultural crime is well protected by a network of community leaders, local administrators and medics. And women themselves.

Arrests are very few, evidence and prosecutions scant. Many girls won't admit undergoing the cut. Some girls and women even demand it as otherwise they are ridiculed, stigmatised and excluded.

The best indicator of the increasing problem is the high rate of school dropouts, early pregnancies and marriages in the two subcounties. An uncut woman is not marriageable.

The practice that denies women sexual pleasure is considered a way to ensure she is chaste and faithful to her husband.

Drought and poverty contribute because poor families need dowries and want to marry off their daughters.

Kuresoi South police commandant Henry Nyaanga told the Star hospitals and medics contribute to the problem mainly because staff, from administrators to gate guards, are locals who support FGM.

Hospital staff have been known to perform 'safe' mutilation under the guise of other procedures.

“The residents and perpetrators of this retrogressive culture are Kalenjin who are secretive and cagey with information," a local journalist said, requesting anonymity.

The most recent Kenya Demographic and Health Survey (2014) indicated the national prevalence of FGM was at 21 per cent, compared with 27 per cent in 2008-09 and 32 per cent in 2003.

Those numbers are probably low.

Media reports, Civil Society Organisations and community leaders say the rite of passage is creeping back and is more lucrative than ever because it's illegal.

Cutters, local officials and police are paid more these days, bribes for officials to look the other way and not report are increasing.

Former Kuresoi North deputy commissioner Felix Watakila said administrators in the two subcounties are bribed with goats and cows to allow the practice.

They'd probably allow it anyway but it's riskier as the national government has warned that abetting and not reporting can cost their jobs. They also risk prosecution.

Efforts by The Star to get numbers of FGM reports and school dropouts in the two subcounties were unsuccessful. Officials kept evading questions and referred reporters to each other.

At the Education, Gender and Cultural Services office, the officer in charge of records, Selina Nkatha, said the practice is kept under wraps.

FGM is returning in towns where trained medical staff perform the cut for a good price, promising no infection from the mutilation.

Kenyan law criminalises FGM and prohibits cross-border FGM. It also prohibits medical caregivers from carrying out the practice and imposes harsh penalties.

“Covering a story on FGM is like doing a story in drug trafficking, no one will confess to doing it or tell on their neighbours,” Nkatha said.

Collecting data is difficult due to lack of a centralised reporting system. The few reports are made at chief's offices, police stations and hospitals. They are not aggregated.

National ministries and departments are developing a central platform where cases can be documented, added up and tracked, she said.

During data collection and surveys, FGM is not on the list of indicators, she said.

Gender, education and culture officials in county and national goverments do not have reliable numbers on FGM and its implications for development and education of girls.

Further, no civil society organisations or community-based organisations are carrying out effective public education on the problem in the two subcounties, Nkatha said. The reason: secrecy.

The last one to exit was a USAID-funded Afya Uzai programme. It tried to end the cut because it contributes to early marriages, teen pregnancies and school dropouts. It focused on family planning.

Kuresoi North education officer Wycliffe Omoto confirmed FGM is carried on but there's little to be done as cases are almost never reported.

“FGM could be contributing to school dropouts, early marriages and teenage pregnancies but there is no way of linking them because FGM is never reported.

He does not have data on dropouts at primary or secondary level because officials are not required to collect numbers.

“Following a child’s journey through school will be easier once the Education ministry generates a template. Today I might report a dropout but the child has been moved to another school without a transfer letter," Omoto said.

His Kuresoi South counterpart, Samuel Chemolwo said FGM was rampant. He said large group initiations used to be held publicly in December during school holidays. Now they are underground.

Elder Samson Yegon partly blamed FGM partly on recurrent conflicts over land, pasture and water and insecurity caused by cattle rustling.

"It is believed a man married to an uncut woman cannot go to war because his presence would be a bad omen signifying defeat," Yegon said.

A woman who has not undergone the cut cannot prepare food or serve warriors/men going to war because it is believed the men will be defeated.

He said the tradition is "more rampant" in areas such as Tegat, Tinet Kapkimbo, Kapkeet, Chemaner, Korao, Masaita, Saitaran and Kiptororo and others on the border.

He said older women were asking to be cut because otherwise they were sidelined and barred from traditional rites, even cooking for their own sons during their circumcision and male initiation.

“Men married to uncircumcised women are also pestered by their colleagues and they are not allowed to participate in certain traditional events,” Yegon said.

They are constantly reminded they are married to children commonly called lakwan.

“The teasing by their colleagues, either male or female, and the exclusion is making older women go for the cut. They also encourage their daughters to undergo it to avoid mistreatment,” the elder said.

Kuresoi North police commander Henry Nyaranga said it is impossible to arrest and prosecute perpetrators because police require evidence. There's a conspiracy to leave no evidence.

In December 2020, he said, 12 girls were arrested during circumcision and confessed they had undergone the cut.

But the medical report at Keringet Subcounty Hospital said there was no evidence of FGM.

“A police officer cannot examine an initiate to see if she has been cut. It must be documented but even for a medic it's taboo to talk against the culture, regardless of their cadre.

"The medical report showed that the girls had not been cut and that was all we could do,” he said.

Nyaranga said a man recently circumcised his wife in their house in Kiptororo. Police could not prosecute because the woman did not complain or go for medical treatment.

Nakuru Woman Representative, Liza Chelule, who is a resident of Kuresoi, said FGM is going on unabated.

She says local administrators, including chiefs and their assistants, are the first point of contact in reporting FGM or plans to perform it. They know but do nothing.

“It is quite unfortunate that it does not only involve young girls but also women married for 10 to 20 years are seeking it. I can't understand what's compelling them."

A married woman who goes for the cut is in no position to protect her daughters from FGM.

Chelule has been holding roadside information sessions on the harm caused by FGM but she said fighting it among the Kalenjin community is difficult.

She calls for a different approach involving all stakeholders, but could not say what that approach would be. 

Lewis Murigi, a senior programme officer at the National Gender Equality Commission in Nakuru, said it is engaging CSOs, county and national governments to develop a new approach.

Through technical working groups, the commission is educating women, children and youth about the harm caused by FGM.

This story has been written with the support of Voice for Women and Girls Rights (VWGR, a project of Journalists for Human Rights.

(Edited by V. Graham