The lethal blade: How my children got HIV during the 'cut'
A circumciser carries a blade and the result of a positive rapid HIV test is held by two female hands.
Fatma Isnino (not her real name) is a woman at war with female genital mutilation and the people pushing its agenda in her community.
The cut, which she once defended, has become a monster she is determined to slay. Her resolve is inspired by the tragic story of how her family disintegrated.
About four years ago, during the December holidays, she sent her daughters, aged seven and 10 years, to her mother to undergo the cut, against the advice of her husband. Now Fatma is living a nightmare from that single decision.
One blade used on all the girls in the operation left her daughters infected with HIV.
"They were four girls, according to what I gathered on that day, and my girls were the last to be circumcised," she recounts.
Inspired by the elderly women who coordinated the circumcision, the mothers of the girls had taken them for the cut, against the wishes of their husbands.
Fatma was glad that her plan had succeeded; her husband was away in the bush seeking pastures for their livestock.
Everything seemed well the first three weeks as the girls recovered from the cut.
However, two months later, she started noticing changes in her daughters, but assumed it was the flu and would go away.
"I noticed they developed some wounds in the mouth and I thought it was just a result of the weather, they had flu, and I ignored it. It disappeared on its own, but then came back again," she narrates.
This continued for a while, but she kept on treating the girls with traditional herbs and off-the-counter medications.
In the third month, the men from the village returned from the wild to check on their families. That night, all hell broke loose in a home not far from theirs — a fate that would soon befall her family.
One of the women who had taken her child for the cut was fighting with her husband. The couple exchanged unpleasant words and the neighbours took an interest.
The woman’s husband stormed out of the house and announced to the neighbours that they should take their children for HIV testing. He then walked to Fatma’s home and asked her husband to step outside for a chat.
Raise hands up
"He told my husband something, I saw my husband raise his hands over his head and I knew it was not good news. My husband quickly walked into the house and picked up the girls, got on a motorbike, and rode to the local dispensary, in the night," she says.
When he returned, he was furious and hit her with a stick on the neck. She was lucky to have survived the beating. He drew his knife to stab her, but she slipped out of his grasp as neighbours restrained him.
He accused Fatma of killing his children by subjecting them to the cut he had rejected. Amid the bitter exchange, he told her their children had been infected with HIV.
"I don't know what happened thereafter, I woke up from the hospital very confused. I started crying for my children," she says.
While she was in hospital, her husband went to her parents and told them he had divorced her. He also took away the children.
When Fatma got out of the hospital, she looked for her children in vain; nobody seemed to know where they had been taken.
For two years, she neither saw nor heard from her family. Then in 2019, her mother-in-law walked into her house with the younger girl. She came bearing bad news — Fatma’s husband and her first-born daughter had died.
"She told me my husband died of hypertension a few months after our first-born daughter died, that he was unable to live with the reality that had befallen his children and never left them with anyone," she says.
Tragedy
Fatma mourns her child every day, and though she got her other daughter the help she needs, she says she will never heal from the tragedy, which has shaped her view towards the cut.
"When I see people castigate activists and champion the cut, I follow them later to their homes, and I share with them my story, then I tell them to wait for their experience. They look at me with utter shock, but I have done my part," she says.
She spies on circumcisers in the community, and she also informs elders and activists of plans to circumcise girls.
Fatma also keeps track of the FGM events scheduled to take place during the holidays and makes sure they don't happen.
"I see every girl as my daughter and do what is necessary to save them from going through what I went through, you never know whom you are paired with on that day," she says.
Tana River chairperson of the Gender Technical Working Group Ralia Hassan notes that the cut is becoming the quickest mode of HIV transmission.
She notes that most people from the pastoralist communities do not take HIV tests, and parents who take their children for the cut do not take any precautions before subjecting their children to the rite.
"Records have shown that HIV has been low among herder communities in the past, but findings also show that it is rising in the same communities," says Ralia.
She says more children are at risk if the cut continues, hence the need to engage communities at a different level, as well as increase funding for activities that raise awareness of such risks.
County gender-based violence/adolescents reproductive health focal person Hawaa Andighafoor notes that the herder families barely consult when they encounter such problems.
"They are very conservative and may not want to sit and share such with another person, they feel so intimidated and shamed, hence need to engage them more," she says.
Also, she notes that the practice is likely fueling HIV transmission as a result of non-sterile techniques used, hence the need to abandon the practice urgently.
