WUNRN
FGM - KENYA LOCAL COMMUNITY CHIEFS MAY BE PART OF FGM
CONTROVERSY
Community
leaders suspected of instigating recent demonstrations supporting outlawed
practice.
More than two thousand members of the
ethnic Maasai community gathered in Kajiado to protest against Kenyan laws
criminalising female genital mutilation. (Photo: Muthoni Njuki/Capital FM)
By Judie Kaberia - 23 June
2014
Kenya’s Director of Public Prosecution
(DPP) says he suspects government-appointed local chiefs were behind recent
demonstrations against the criminalisation of female genital mutilation (FGM).
More than 2,000 women and men from the
Maasai community gathered in Kajiado, south of Nairobi, on June 12 to protest
against a 2011 law specifically banning FGM. It was the second such
demonstration held in the town this month.
FGM is also illegal under the 2001
Children’s Act, and a new bill on domestic violence due to be tabled in
parliament is to introduce stiffer penalties for those who practice it.
As well as the psychological consequences
of pain, trauma and mutilation, FGM poses significant health risks. In addition
to infection risks, it increases dangers associated with childbirth and denies
women their sexual rights.
Despite the ban, FGM is still widely
practiced by a number of different ethnic groups in Kenya.
According to Adan Duale, majority leader in
the lower house of parliament, 98 per cent of girls in what was formerly North
Eastern Province undergo FGM.
In the western region of Kisii, he said,
the figure was 96 per cent, while among the Kuria and Pokot ethnic groups it
stood at more than 90 per cent. Among the Maasai community, the rate is 76 per
cent, with the Embu significantly lower at 51 per cent and the Meru 45 per
cent.
Communities that still carry out FGM are
trying to get the government to change the law and respect it as a legitimate
cultural practice.
Laila Nailole, who spoke at the June 12
demonstration as a representative of local Maasai women, said her community
would continue to practice FGM.
She said she had supported the introduction
of a new constitution, approved by referendum in 2010, without realising it
would lead to a ban on FGM.
“We will not stop – we have to continue
this,” Nailole told the crowd on June 12. “We thank you [government] for
bringing us here today. But you did not explain to us about the constitution
properly. That is why we supported it, but now you are biting us with it.”
CHIEFS SUSPECTED OF INSTIGATING PROTESTS
In Kenya, chiefs are low-level
administrators appointed as part of policing mechanisms to help maintain order
in their local area.
The June protests followed recent cases
where chiefs have been charged with complicity in FGM in their own communities.
Lekishon Moriaso, a chief serving in
Kenya’s Narok South District, appeared in court in April after his two
daughters underwent FGM. He was charged with aiding the operation and with
knowingly allowing it to take place in his home.
Meanwhile, Joshua Kaaka, a chief in
Kajiado, is facing charges of failing to report acts of FGM carried out against
several girls in his area.
According to prosecutors, the two cases are
still in court.
DPP Keriako Tobiko, told IWPR that he
believed local chiefs organised the recent protests, although he declined to
give further information or name any particular suspect.
“We have unverified information that these
so-called demonstrations may have been instigated by some of the personalities
we have charged; some are government functionaries,” Tobiko said.
The DPP added that politicians were not
doing enough to prevent FGM.
“The leaders must also come out and speak
against this harmful practice. Tragically, a number of them would rather keep
quiet for fear of losing votes,” he said.
When the Kenyan parliament debated the
issue on June 17, members from some areas where FGM remains widespread called
for the ban to be lifted.
Jimmy Angwenyi, the member for Kitutu
Chache North, told parliament that FGM was an important cultural institution
and those practicing it should not face prosecution.
“I wonder why this parliament wants to
criminalise people’s culture,” he said. “The Kisii culture is that we must have
a small cut on our girls.”
The member of parliament for Nyamira, Alice
Chae, an ethnic Kisii who has undergone FGM, rounded on Angwenyi.
“I wish he was a woman like me who
underwent it [FGM] and is surviving,” she said. “It is wrong, it is pathetic,
and it is primitive.”
FGM STILL SEEN AS LEGITIMATE
IWPR spoke to members of the Maasai
community in Kajiado who refuse to give up FGM.
Angel is only one year old but her mother
has already decided that she will undergo the procedure.
“When she is between ten and 15 years she
has to get circumcised,” she told IWPR.
Angel’s mother said her other four
daughters faced the cut after they reached the age of ten.
She does not understand why the practice is
illegal given the cultural belief that it averts a curse on the wider family.
“If a girl is not circumcised, it is
a curse,” she said. “Her parents, her sisters and her brothers will die early.
So if a girl refuses to be cut, she is cursing her family and she is an enemy.
“These things are real, we have seen them
happen. There is a man in this village who died after his uncircumcised
daughter became pregnant.”
Last month, a girl died in Kajido after she
underwent FGM and bled to death.
Asked about this case, the woman said the
girl died because she was already cursed.
“The curse caused the death of the girl.
One of her parents wanted her to be circumcised and the other parent was
opposed to it. That was already a curse. She died because of the disagreement.
No one ever died because of FGM,” she said.
Another problem is that women who have not
undergone FGM cannot be assisted during childbirth because the Maasai believe
it is a curse to touch the blood of a female who has not been cut.
Ben Seiya took part in the June 12
demonstration and also attended mediation talks with government representatives
who travelled to Kajiado to listen to the protesters’ concerns.
He believes the practice will end one day,
but he is not yet prepared to abandon his belief in it.
“My wife is circumcised, and if I marry a
second wife she has to be circumcised,” he told IWPR. “If she is not
circumcised when she is giving birth, no woman will help her as they cannot
touch her blood. Also, you know that I will be belittled if I have a woman who
is uncircumcised for a wife.”
DPP (DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTION) TO
ENFORCE LAW
Despite resistance to ending FGM, the DPP
has pledged to pursue the issue.
“My duty as prosecutor is to enforce the
law,” he told IWPR.“I have no discretion; I have no powers to abrogate
legislation that has been enacted by parliament. For as long as that
legislation is there, I will enforce it.”
While indicating that he would not waver on
the issue, Tobiko said he recognised the dilemma facing Maasai – a group he
himself belongs to – for whom FGM is a right of passage.
“Culture is beautiful, it is good; I myself
come from that community,” he said. “But the constitution does recognise that
not all cultural practices are good. Some violate the integrity and dignity of
individuals, and in the case of FGM, it has serious medical and psychological
effects.”
Tobiko acknowledged that prosecutions on
their own would not deter people from carrying out FGM. He said it was equally
important to educate people about both the law and the harmful effects of the
practice.
“Just taking files and cases to court will
not have the intended effects,” he said. “We have developed a different
approach. We go to communities, stakeholders and educate them about it. In some
areas, existence of that law is not even known.”