I have no regrets about making my story public

"Nothing will make me return to my matrimonial home,” Ms Ann Cherono says with finality. “I will never return to him. I have found peace since our separation.”

Ms Cherono, who is from Transmara in Narok County, got married in 2007 but her marriage did not last. Reason?

Her husband wanted her to undergo the female cut but she would hear none of it.

“Married life was good for a while – until my husband started mocking me in front of his friends,” she says.

She adds that on many occasions he would come home with his friends but refuse to eat the food she served them.

“He would refuse to eat using flimsy excuses such as that the food was not well cooked. At times he would say that it had been cooked by a young girl and not a woman.”

The mother of one says that, while she was hurt by the derisive remarks, she still ensured that she put more effort into preparing the meal the next time he came home with his friends.

But even that turned out to be an exercise in futility.

If the situation was bad at home, things were even worse outside. She was shunned and mocked by her fellow women.

“For instance, when I joined other women at the river, they would make annoying comments like, “This house has not been smeared”, implying that there was a child among them who should not be allowed to listen to adult talk.

She says the worst pressure came from her mother-in-law. “Grow up, be a woman,” the older woman would chide her.

One day a “well-meaning” woman offered to help her get circumcised. “She told me I did not have to tell my husband,” Ms Cherono says.

STIGMA
However, Ms Cherono flatly refused.

“I shuddered at the thought of undergoing the rite. The thought of wearing a skin covering during the ceremony was enough to kill me!” she says.

Like Ms Cherono, many women from the Kipsigis and Maasai communities live miserable lives for not having undergone the much-cherished rite of passage.

Many prefer to suffer in silence, lest they be perceived as rebellious.

However, Ms Cherono, who was brave enough to resist the pressure from her husband’s family and the villagers, says that her decision to speak out was the best thing she had made in a long time.

“Stigmatisation has pushed many women to undergo the outdated practice,” she says, adding that they are not forced directly to go for the cut, but yield to pressure from their husbands and in-laws.

In extreme cases, an uncircumcised is not even allowed to milk cows.

“A man might tell you, ‘You do not know how to milk.’ Such words tear a woman’s heart out,” she says.

When she could not take the pressure anymore, Ms Cherono opted to end her marriage in 2010.

Fortunately, her father took her back home and was kind enough to allow her to resume her studies.

“My father paid my college fees and ensured I got the best education he could give me. I graduated as a health worker in 2010. I am now a public health officer,” she says.

However, many women from her Kipsigis community end up having no choice but to undergo the practice.

“No woman wants to be called mamalat, a derogative term for an uncircumcised woman,” she explains.

“We are suffering. Our culture is tormenting us. We are becoming its slaves,” she laments.

PRACTICE PROSCRIBED
And this is still happening more than 30 years after female genital mutilation (FGM) was outlawed in the country.

In 1982, President Daniel arap Moi issued a statement outlawing the practice after the deaths of 14 girls due to complications.

Then in December 1989, he appealed to the communities that were still practising FGM to stop it.

Just last month, four women from Chesilan village in Emurrua Dikirr Township were arrested for undergoing FGM.

The women were covered with blankets and had strings tied to their legs, an indication that they had graduated to adulthood.

The women, who spoke to DN2 soon after their arrest, said they were remorseful.

They were aged between 20 and 24 years. Two of them were expectant.

In the same month, 18 women were arrested in Trans Mara also for practising FGM.

Four of them were the circumcisers and were released on a Sh1 million bond each, by a Kilgoris court.

The remaining 14, one of whom was a Standard Six pupil, were young girls who had undergone the cut. They were each released on a Sh100, 000 bond.

Chief David Mogun of Murkan Location in Trans Mara East Sub-county says the arrest of the 18 women was a major victory in the war against FGM in the area.

“Two years ago, we tried to arrest the culprits, but they outsmarted us. Last year we devised a strategy that ensured we nabbed them; we got 18 of them,” he says.

Chief Mogun says it has become very difficult to fight FGM in the community.

“It is done in great secrecy. The culprits have changed tack and evade government officers, whom they believe will report them to security personnel,” he says, adding that the perpetrators now conduct the rite “off season” and at night when security officers cannot easily reach the villages.

“Youth arm themselves with bows and arrows and surround homes where the ceremony is taking place. It is very risky to make arrest before the ceremony because the graduands are heavily protected,” he says, adding that arrests can only me made after.

“But the law is very clear. FGM is outlawed. Not even a 100-year-old granny is allowed to engage in the practice,” says chief Mogun.

TOUGH JOB
The county administrator points out that the villagers have changed tack to evade the long arm of the law, so now the operation is performed on young, married girls.

He says the community believes that married women cannot be arrested for undergoing FGM.

Trans Mara East Deputy County Commissioner Mr Chaka Nyamawi adds that it not easy to get evidence to incriminate the perpetrators since the medical personnel in the hospitals in Trans Mara East refused to sign the P3 Forms necessary to back evidence in FGM cases.

“We had to ask medical personnel at Trans Mara West District Hospital in Kilgoris to help us,” says Mr Chaka.

The medical personnel from the Kipsigis community feared that the local people would turn against them. Some feared being cursed.

Mr Chaka says the practice is rampant among the Maasai, Kuria and Kipsigis, adding that the great secrecy in which it is conducted creates the mistaken impression that it has reduced.

“But I fear it is higher than ever,” he says.

He says the Anti-FGM Board is doing little to fight it.

“I have not seen any member of the said board in Trans Mara to caution residents against the practice. This is despite indications that the practice is widespread,” he says.

He said it is unfortunate that some organisations continue to get donor funding to fight FGM but have made little impact.

“The organisations end up pocketing millions of shillings while our people continue to perpetrate the crime,” he says.

HEALTH RISKS

He says that communities need intense sensitisation to the dangers of FGM, adding that, while arresting and prosecuting the culprits was one of the ways of fighting the vice, the residents need to be educated on the dangers of FGM.

He appealed to communities practising FGM to abandon it, saying it led many girls to drop out of school to get married because they consider themselves adults after undergoing the rite.

He says in some instances, FGM had caused deaths, with deaths of young girls due to excessive bleeding having been reported from different parts of the country.

The administrator explains that in some communities, FGM is severe and poses serious health problems for women, such as prolonged labour, complications during childbirth and obstetric fistula.