Kenya: FGM Clubs in Schools to Fight the Cut

April 11, 2011
Nairobi Star- allAfrica.com
Hussein Salesa

The government has been urged to establish anti-Female Genital Mutilation clubs in schools to combat the outdated cultural practices in pastoral communities in Northern Kenya.

Merti Intergrated Development (MID) coordinator Abdulah Shande said the clubs will help reduce cases of discrimination against those non-practising in primary and secondary schools in the region.

He said the clubs will discourage young girls from accepting to go through the rites as the case where almost 90 per cent of students go through the practice during the December holidays when schools were closed. MID is sponsoring more than 80 girls from poor families to secondary education in Isiolo and Garba-Tula districts.

Shande said his organisation is advocating to come up with inter-sectoral collaboration programmes aimed at eliminating FGM in the society.

He said the fight against the practice could only be won if the government, NGOs and private sectors jointly work out modalities to come up with clubs that advocate against it.

The coordinator noted that there was need to undertake a comprehensive research on FGM among the practicing communities in Kenya adding that the practice was not cultural neither religious.

Ugandan Women Flock to Kenya for FGM

December 2, 2010
New Vision
Daniel Edyegu


As the Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) Act passed by Parliament makes the practice harder to carry out in Uganda, more Sabiny women are flocking to Kenya to get cut, an official has revealed. 

Lillian Plapan, the director of Setat Women’s Organisation, an anti-FGM civil society group in West Pokot district in Kenya, told the deputy Speaker of Parliament, Rebecca Kadaga, that the female candidates seek the services of Kenyan surgeons, who secretly perform the ritual at night. 

“In Kenya, Sabiny girls are cut in maize plantations and kept there for four days to allow them to heal. Later, they cross back to Uganda for total recovery,” Plapan said. 

She also said on some occasions, the Sabiny hire Kenyan surgeons who cross to Uganda and carry out the ritual at night for fear of being arrested. This revelation was made during the 15th Culture Day celebrations held at Chemwania High School in Kween district on Tuesday. 

Under the FGM law, offenders face jail terms ranging from five to 10 years or life imprisonment. Except for the Children’s Act that bars offenders from inflicting harm on children below 18 years, Kenya does not have a law on FGM. 

The Kenyan women parliamentarians recently came up with an FGM Bill in order to foster the cross-border campaign against the ritual. 

The Kapchorwa district Police commander, Patrick Bingi, said though the FGM season in Sebei sub-region started yesterday, the Police had inadequate means of transport to patrol rural areas and implement the new law. 

James Kakooza, the primary healthcare state minister, said the World Health Organisation was concerned about the increase in the number of medical personnel carrying out the ritual in health units. He cautioned health practitioners in Uganda against carrying out the ritual. 

Barhane Ras-Work, a director of a civil anti-FGM organisation, said with the increasing campaign against the ritual, the days of FGM in Uganda were numbered. 

“FGM has no place in the contemporary world. When I see the partnership between government and the civil society, I realise we are getting there,” Ras-Work said. 

Kadaga said in June, the Ugandan Parliament passed a resolution to ban FGM, adding that the country signed the petition on the ban of the ritual in Africa last month. 

“When Parliament passed the law on FGM, our biggest worry was how quickly the Police would take to get acquainted with the new Act. Since Police have shown agility in responding to the new law, I urge parents and community leaders to unite in the fight against FGM,” she said.

Sierra Leone Youth Call for an End to Female Genital Mutilation

November 30, 2010
The Huffington Post
Chi Mgbako

The perspective often missing in the debate regarding female genital mutilation (FGM), a harmful traditional practice involving the partial or total removal of the external female genitals, is the voice of African youth. My recent experience conducting human rights workshops at schools in the Kambia District of northern Sierra Leone, a West African country where 90% of women have undergone FGM as children, underscores the need to focus on the viewpoints of Africa's youth regarding the practice.

I witnessed hundreds of Sierra Leonean students in sweltering lecture halls and classrooms highlight FGM's physical, sexual, and mental consequences. The workshops were a clarion call from Sierra Leonean youth to end the practice of FGM.

I conducted the workshops in partnership with seasoned Sierra Leonean activists from the anti-FGM organization Centre for Safe Motherhood Youth and Child Outreach ("CESMYCO") but still assumed it would to be difficult for students to speak openly about FGM. But they were eager and willing to discuss the practice.

My partners and I commenced each workshop by asking students to identify traditional practices that affect girls in their communities. We avoided any direct mention of FGM so that the students could initiate the discussion themselves. Almost immediately, and without hesitation, students raised the issue of FGM.

At the Kambia Islamic Secondary School, students highlighted FGM's harmful medical effects. They eagerly raised their hands to note that FGM can "expose girls to disease" due to the re-use of unsanitary razor blades, cause uncontrollable bleeding, have a "negative effect on giving birth," and even result in death.

When students raised the issue of FGM's health consequences, we asked how many students knew a girl who had died after undergoing FGM. Without fail, a flurry of hands would reach for the sky.

At the Madina Secondary School, a student confidently noted that she disagreed with FGM because it "can remove healthy organs." This statement was an insightful repudiation of FGM proponents who argue that female genital cutting and male circumcision are synonymous. They erroneously equate the clitoris, which is indeed a genital organ, with the foreskin of the penis. The correct male equivalent of FGM would be penile amputation.

The students also bravely referred to FGM's negative effects on healthy female sexual functioning. A student at the Kambia Islamic Secondary School stated that she disagreed with FGM because "it decreases sexual urge." At the Federation Junior Secondary School another student shyly said that she objected to the practice because "girls lose feeling." At the Kolenten Senior Secondary School one student boldly stated that FGM "can hurt the child physically and mentally because the clitoris is a sensitive organ connected to the mind." I was deeply impressed with their sophisticated notion of the physical and psychological layers of female sexuality.

The complicated effect of FGM on female sexuality is an often-marginalized aspect of the FGM debate. When I first met Sierra Leonean activist and CESMYCO director Laurel Bangura, who conducted the school workshops with me, she spoke openly about FGM's negative effects on female sexuality. Too often this focus is dismissed as a Western preoccupation. I remember Laurel speaking movingly about the older Sierra Leonean women who had undergone FGM in their girlhoods and still mourn the loss of a part of their sexual lives.

The students who raised the issue of sexuality were making a salient and oft-ignored point - they are forced to undergo a practice that has negative effects on their future sexual functioning at ages when they have no choice in the matter.

In addition to highlighting FGM's physical, mental and sexual effects, the students were also very concerned with FGM's impact on girls' access to education. In Sierra Leone, and in other African countries, FGM "fleeing" stories are common. Young girls who fear the practice will sometimes flee their villages - acts of courage that often disrupt their education. Several years ago, while working on my first FGM project in Sierra Leone, I met a group of young sisters who had fled their village in Magburaka to escape FGM. High-ranking FGM initiators had attempted to force the girls to undergo FGM and begin training to become FGM initiators, which would have halted the girls' formal education. To avoid this fate, the sisters ran away from their village to seek refuge with a human rights organization.

Like the Magburaka girls, student testimonials from our workshops reveal that children are under enormous pressure to undergo FGM even when they have grave misgivings about the practice. In one of the more powerful moments of our workshops, students at the Umuro Muchtarr Muslim Secondary School said they wanted "education" instead of "cutting." "You can go to the bush and [the FGM initiators] can teach you what they want, but they shouldn't touch you," declared a student. The rest of the students burst into applause. They were affirming that traditional rituals from childhood to adulthood should not involve harm.

The final school we visited was different. Gone were the hands eagerly flying into the air to discuss FGM. Gone was the shimmering confidence of the students in the previous schools. Laurel Bangura stepped to the front of the silent classroom and asked how many of the students knew a girl who had died in the bush after undergoing FGM. Many students slowly raised their hands.

Laurel asked, "Is it right for girls to die in the bush because they've been cut?"

"Maybe death is our destiny," one girl softly replied.

"Death should not be any child's destiny," Laurel answered.

I watched the students listening with rapt attention as Laurel made the case against the practice and medicalization of FGM. She spoke, with quiet power, of the human rights of women and girls to integrity and freedom from discrimination. The schoolgirls sat in their white hijab head coverings, like perfect rows of precious eggs, leaning in closer and intently listening with wide, open eyes.