Samburu County lies in the northern part of Kenya. At Archer’s Post, you get your first encounter with the rich Samburu culture. The Samburu community comprises eight clans that are ranked by wealth.
As you drive through Samburu National Reserve towards West Gate, you notice several settlements along the way. Morans, young boys and girls graze cattle, sharing the grazing space with wild animals. At this time of the day, the sun is scorching hot and the wild animals have gone into hiding. Going deeper into the interior, you lose your phone connectivity.
We drove for over an hour to meet Samburu women village leaders who were coming together for the first time to discuss female genital mutilation. Josephine Kulea, founder and director of Samburu Girls Foundation, convened the meeting. The previous day, Kulea had met male leaders over the same issue. For her, getting a platform to address village elders, especially as regards to female genital mutilation was an achievement.
The village leaders who were representing other women from the community had never had the opportunity to discuss female circumcision before. This meeting was meant to make them aware of the harms caused by FGM and early child marriages. At this juncture, some were still supporting the practice. They neither fully comprehended the harms nor knew the fact that it is an unlawful practice. To some, the new Kenyan Constitution 2010 is an imposition of the west.
The Samburu culture allows boys between age between 15 and 25 to bead a girl from their clan. Beading is the practice where a Moran presents beads to a girl within his clan with whom he has sexual pleasure at will. He will never marry this girl because she is from the same clan. Once a girl is beaded, a Manyatta is built separately for her to make it easy for the Moran to gain access to her.
In the event of conception, the girl may be forced to abort or the new born killed at birth or given away. Some girls lose their lives, especially during the crude abortions where the abdomen of the pregnant girl is pressed until the foetus dies.
Shockingly, girls as young as seven years old are often married off to men way older. Even more astonishingly, the girls are circumcised on the morning of their wedding. They bleed into their new homes. Some men will wait for the girl to heal the wounds FGM inflicts on them, but others do not. These girls’ education comes to a halt. They are expected to bear children, build houses, rear and manage domestic livestock in addition to providing food for the family. Female genital mutilation comes with stigma as the girls can get fistula, have difficult childbirth, infections, and anemia leading to death and experience reduced sexual pleasure.
However, despite the mess that FGM has created previously, the youth are against the practice. Most are developing the conviction that the way to stop the vice is to marry within their age set. The women are also standing up against their husbands marrying very young girls as second or third wives.
The trend is now changing. Men are evading responsibility of the practice if caught and blame it all on their wives by saying it is the women who do the cutting. Often, the women end up being locked up with release bonds set as high as Sh200,000.
The annual International Women’s Day was celebrated on March 8. This year’s theme was ‘Make it Happen.’ One of the ways to end female genital mutilation is having an alternative rite of passage.
This is where for three days girls are involved in long sessions on self-confidence, sex education and are encouraged to continue with education. Samburu MP Raphael Letimalo, made it happen for his girls last December.
Josephine Kulea through the Samburu Girls Foundation rescues girls from FGM and early marriages and helps them go back to school. She is currently going round the county educating both men and women on the dangers of FGM, early marriage and lack of education. The foundation has so far rescued 200 girls and counting.
