Board says FGM may be eradicated before 2022

Body adopts multi-sectoral approach including grassroots women movements to run village campaigns
Board says FGM may be eradicated before 2022
Photo credit: Photo | Pool

What you need to know:

  • President Uhuru Kenyatta’s pledge to end Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) by 2022.
  • Anti-FGM Board has adopted a multi-sectoral approach.
  • Government agencies and departments including those from ministries of Public Service and Gender and Interior and National Co-ordination share the responsibility.
  • The civil societies and clergy have also been looped in the plan to accelerate end to the vice.
  • They are engaging women in table-banking groups where they are encouraging members to enlighten one another about the vice.
  • Intention to establish grassroots women movements to run village anti-FGM campaigns.

President Uhuru Kenyatta’s pledge to end Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) by 2022 changed the tact to eradicating the vice as stakeholders express optimism of achieving the goal earlier than targeted.

In June 3, 2019, Mr Kenyatta made the pronouncement for the first time at Women Deliver Conference in Vancouver, Canada.

Later, in November, at the Nairobi Summit on International Conference on Population and Development at 25 (ICPD25), he reaffirmed his commitment spelling out reinforcement of legislation, policy, communication, advocacy and bolstering evidence related to FGM as his strategy to eradicating the harmful practice.

With the President on the steering wheel, liability to wipe out the harmful practice stopped falling solely on the Anti-FGM Board.

Now, officials in various government agencies and departments including those from ministries of Public Service and Gender and Interior and National Co-ordination share the responsibility.

NATIONAL PREVALENCE

The civil societies and clergy have also been looped in the plan to accelerate end to the vice. Chiefs from 22 counties where FGM is prevalent are now expected to give status reports every six months. They include Kajiado, Narok, Samburu, Laikipia, Migori, Kisii, Nyamira, Meru, Embu, Mandera, Wajir, Garissa, Tana River and West Pokot.

Others are Baringo, Elgeyo Marakwet, Isiolo, Marsabit, Bungoma, Bomet, Taita Taveta.

According to the 2014 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey (KDHS), 21 per cent of women and girls aged between 15 and 49 have undergone the cut.

In some communities, however, the practice is four times the national prevalence. Among the Somali, for instance, prevalence stands at 94 per cent, meaning nearly all girls and women have had their genitalia cut.

It is 86 per cent in Samburu, 84 per cent in Kisii and 78 per cent among Maasai.

WOMEN GROUPS

“It is no longer about the board working alone. We now have many other players. We have adopted a multi-sectoral approach,” Anti-FGM Board chief executive officer Bernadette Loloju told the Nation last week.

“We are working with local administrators, police, women groups and the civil society. That has reinforced monitoring of this practice and creating awareness in the villages.”

The President’s pledge, she said, has solidified partnerships between the State and non-State actors towards ending the vice.

Having survivors share their experiences is one of the strategies the partners are capitalising on to change peoples’ mind-set about FGM.

“You know FGM can end the same way people have stopped shaking hands. People will wake up one day and say we will not do it anymore. It is just about changing the mind-set.”

She said they are engaging women in table-banking groups where they are encouraging members to enlighten one another about the vice.

This, she noted, is intended at establishing grassroots women movements to run village anti-FGM campaigns.

The Anti-FGM Board chief said the vice could end even before 2022, should women defy the odds and take the lead in saving girls and other women from the practice.

“FGM will end the moment women who are survivors vow not to take their girls through the same pain,” she said.

PARTNERSHIPS

In November last year, Ministry of Public Service and Gender launched a National Policy on Abandonment of Female Genital Mutilation (2019). It is aligned with impetus to accelerate eradication of FGM, strengthen multi-sectorial interventions and partnerships as well as community participation in fighting the vice.

In line with hastening elimination of FGM, officials from the Ministry of Public Service and Gender led by the Chief Administrative Secretary (CAS) Rachel Shebesh are currently touring the 22 FGM hot spot counties.

They are meeting county security agencies including county commissioners and their deputies, chiefs, religious leaders and community elders to revitalise their momentum towards achieving the 2022 target.

Although medicalisation of FGM is becoming an emerging risk to achieving the President’s goal, Ms Loloju said their counter-strategy will diminish the threat.

“We are directly dealing with the nurses through the nursing council and any nurse found culpable will face the law just like anyone else,” she said.

AFTER DELIVERY

In Bomet County, the partnership between chiefs and Nyumba Kumi leaders is so solid that parents fear taking their daughters to clinics and hospitals for the cut, explains Mulot chief Stanely Towett.

“I have information from every corner of the village thanks to the Nyumba Kumi leaders. They know all that is happening around,” he said.

“Two years ago, we would receive up to 20 cases in a season. Here FGM is usually done in December. It was so rampant that women would be cut immediately after delivery. But we don’t have such cases now,” he said.

Kuresoi North Deputy County Commissioner Felix Watakila said FGM has not been reported in his area since November last year when they arrested three women who had taken girls through the cut.