Chuka court jails woman who forced FGM on her daughters

A woman who admitted forcing her two teen daughters to undergo female genital mutilation in Tharaka -Nithi County has been sentenced to six years in prison by  a Chuka court.

The woman faced four counts before Senior Resident Magistrate Mwanamkuu Sudi including aiding and abetting the cut on the girls and failing to report the offence to law enforcement officers.

The court heard that on November 14, the woman also wilfully failed to protect the minors from the harmful cultural rite of passage that negatively affected their health and knowingly allowed her house to be used for the purposes of performing the genital mutilation.

The convict was arrested Tuesday by police officers.  

County Commissioner Muzne Abdullatif said her office received a tip off from officers working with Plan International, a non-governmental organisation, that the two girls had undergone the ‘cut’.

Ms Abdullatif said the girls, who were circumcised two weeks ago, were placed in a safe shelter.  

The mother of the girls, who declined to disclose the circumciser, said she made her girls to undergo the ‘cut’ so as to avoid a family.  

“My dead great grandfather left a curse compelling all girls in his lineage to undergo the cut. If girls do not get the cut they go mad,” the woman said.

She said girls allegedly had started developing some mental complications but recovered immediately they were circumcised.

She said that she had made her older four daughters to undergo the ‘cut’ to avoid the curse.

“I have to choose between death and circumcising them,” she said.