Clandestine Biwott: FGM an insult to human dignity
The prevalence of harmful practices such as FGM is still high in Kenya despite laws and policies geared towards ending them.
What you need to know:
- Ms Clandestine Biwott, 47, had witnessed the devastating impact FGM had on young girls.
- She began championing the freedom of girls and women, ensuring that they, too, proceeded with their education to boost their career protests and lives.
Until a few years ago, Marakwet girls were culturally required to undergo the outlawed female genital mutilation (FGM).
So revered was the practice that married women who had skipped the rite of passage either opted to undergo the cut or were forcibly circumcised by traditionalists.
The practice, in turn, impeded girls' development, with most of them, unlike their male counterparts, dropping out of school to be married off. This irked some local women, who began to agitate for their emancipation from the cultural yoke.
Ms Clandestine Biwott, 47, had witnessed the devastating impact FGM had on young girls. She began championing the freedom of girls and women, ensuring that they, too, proceeded with their education to boost their career protests and lives. She was out to give a new lease of life to the downtrodden. The cultural harmful edicts had to give.
“It was paining to see children who were barely into their teens carrying babies after being married off. The marriages were usually arranged and soon after they had been circumcised, they headed straight for their matrimonial homes. This increased poverty levels in society,” the mother of seven narrated.
Mistreated
Ms Biwott notes with concern how, on several occasions, women who had been initially married before undergoing FGM were marched from their homes and forcibly circumcised.
“It is degrading when an uncircumcised woman is regarded as a child. This has seen married women opting for the cut to save face from frequent ridicules. After seeing all this, I decided to join women rights group to fight for their rights,” she says.
Five years ago, she joined the Defenders Coalition, a rights group, to help bring to the fore the plight of women and girls in her community and beyond.
She says that with advocacy and FGM ban, cases of child and women abuse have considerably reduced but adds that there are areas where the practice goes on undetected.
“Society is now treating women and children with respect and girls are now able to access education without being married off at a tender age as before. Women are also allowed to speak in barazas and their input given credence, unlike before when they were just seen but not heard.”
Empowered
Ms Biwott says girls have also been empowered and families now give children from both genders equal opportunities when it comes to access to education, among other rights. She says she has been trained at various forums in women’s and children’s rights, and, most recently, single mothers’.
“There has been a notion that rights activists do not have any training in their trade, but it is not true because we have been trained in what we do and we are still attaining more training in it,” she says.
“But at the moment, I want to handle the emerging issue of single motherhood, especially in rural setups, where women are left with children to fend for themselves. And because of poverty, they cannot meet the basic needs of the children.”
Ms Biwott says she does not access any funds but volunteers in most of her work. On a few occasions, the organisation sends legal representatives to her aid whenever there is a case.
But her journey has never been that rosy. She is living with disability and navigating the hilly terrain in the region is an arduous task.
“Despite mobility issues there are threats from the perpetrators, which is an impediment to the works we do. We report them, but they usually go scot-free.”
Funding is also a challenge because the campaign is tasking. “But going forward, the future is promising because society is now getting enlightened and seeing the need to abandon retrogressive practices.”
