Why tough laws have little chance of ending girls’ circumcision

Politics and policy

Mrs Jane Lanoi, the FPFK FGM project leader, displays a tool that a reformed circumciser used. FGM exposes girls and women to a lot of difficulties. FILE 

By Diana Mwango

In Summary

• Kenyans and Somalis living in England, Wales, and France have migrated with the culture and practise circumcision with the help of doctors.
• Circumcision of girls is still common in 28 countries in Africa despite the global ban.
• In Kenya, FGM rates are high among the Somali at 98 per cent, Kisii at 96 per cent and Maasai at 73 per cent, according to the Anti-FGM Board.

For a country struggling to end female genital mutilation (FGM), news that the more informed Kenyans at home and in foreign lands are still circumcising their girls comes as a sharp thorn in the flesh of campaigners.

 

Many governments globally are worrying that FGM is no longer a practice of the uneducated and the girls are not ‘cut’ by traditional circumcisers.

Kenyans and Somalis living in England, Wales, and France have migrated with the culture and practise circumcision with the help of doctors.

For HIV/Aids campaigners, the use of health workers seems like a step towards the right direction, but for Unicef, medicalisation of circumcision is a step backward.

Circumcision of girls is still common in 28 countries in Africa despite the global ban, according to World Health organisation (WHO). WHO estimates that 100 million to 140 million women have been circumcised and about two million girls are at risk of genital mutilation every year.

In Kenya, FGM rates are high among the Somali at 98 per cent, Kisii at 96 per cent and Maasai at 73 per cent, according to the Anti-FGM Board.

In developed countries like Britain and France, immigrants continue with this cultural belief. One report indicated that last year, about 100,000 women in Britain underwent the illegal operation, with doctors having carried out the procedure on girls as young as 10.

More than 200,000 girls under the age of 15 are believed to be at high risk of FGM in England and Wales, the report indicated.

In a Swedish elementary school, up to 60 girls were discovered to have undergone the ‘cut’ since March, Norrköpings Tidningar newspaper reported.

In one class, all 28 girls had been subjected to the most severe form of genital mutilation where the clitoris and labia are completely removed, and the genitals sewn to leave a small vaginal opening.

About 42,000 women and girls in Sweden are reported to have been subjected to the controversial procedure with 7,000 being less than 10 years old.

A few weeks ago, the UK launched a campaign targeting Kenyans, Somalis and Nigerians as it seeks to discourage FGM and prosecuted a doctor accused of performing the procedure. For Kenyan elite, August and December holidays in rural homes have turned into excuses to circumcise girls.

READ: Anti-FGM campaign targets Kenyans, Somalis in Britain

The world thinks it is making a step forward in the fight against FGM, but it is a step backwards as the most civilised in society continue with this practice called ‘honour violence.’

‘‘Culture is so powerful, it dictates our reasoning, it cannot be exchanged with a trend. It will take a very long to end FGM,’’ said Dr Jared Siso, an anthropology lecturer at University of Nairobi.