I couldn’t save my sister from FGM, now I do it for other girls
Nice Leng'ete, a human-rights activist and anti-FGM campaigner.
What you need to know:
- Her book, The Girls in The Wild Fig Tree, details how Soila agreed to be circumcised as a compromise so that Nice would not have to face the cut.
- Ms Leng’ete says she had to watch helplessly as her sister was circumcised and married off before completing her education.
Courage and conviction are perhaps the hallmarks of Nice Leng’ete’s life. From the eight-year-old girl who was considered an ‘outcast’ of sorts in her Maasai community for running away from the ‘cut’, to a global leader who has dedicated her life to rescuing young women and girls from undergoing Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).
Ms Leng’ete, a human-rights activist and anti-FGM campaigner, has been recognised by TIME Magazine as one of the top 100 most influential people in the world.
“FGM is not just a physical cut. It’s a human rights cut that violates not only women’s and girls’ bodies but also their future. Their dreams and ambitions are cut short because they become wives and mothers instead of pursuing their education,” Ms Leng’ete tells The Voice when she opens up on her dedication towards fighting violence against women and girls.
Having been orphaned at the age of seven, Ms Leng’ete and her sister, Soila, were raised by their grandfather in Kimana, a small town in Loitoktok that borders Mt Kilimanjaro.
Everyone she knew in the Kenya-Tanzania border town had undergone FGM. For a while, she, too, presumed that female circumcision was the way of life.
However, after she joined boarding school, she soon realised that not all girls were circumcised. That was when eight-year-old Ms Leng’ete began plotting her escape.
“You would be required to wake up at 4am to bathe in ice-cold water that was meant to act as the anaesthesia. When it was time for my sister and me to get the cut, I remember telling her we had to flee. We ran to my aunt’s house, about 70 kilometres away, but were eventually caught, beaten and taken back home,” she says.
Helpless
Eventually, Soila agreed to be circumcised as a compromise so that her sister would not have to. Ms Leng’ete says she had to watch helplessly as her sister was circumcised and married off before completing her education, an issue she discusses in her book, The Girls in The Wild Fig Tree. The book, published last year, details how her sister agreed to be circumcised as a compromise so that she would not have to.
“In my culture, the cut makes you a woman. You could be a 12-year-old girl, but it is assumed that you are ready for marriage and have children. I have seen death because of the cut. I have lost friends and family. This is what made me dedicate over 10 years to anti-FGM campaign. I could not do it for my sister, Soila, but I can do it for other girls.”
Ms Leng’ete founded Nice Place Foundation, a rescue centre, located in her home town, Kimana. The home offers refuge to young women and girls from Tanzania and Kenya who are survivors or at-risk of undergoing FGM or child marriages.
“Running away is not a solution, because the girls are caught and taken back home. We even have girls with disabilities, how would they escape such a situation?
“I wished that the first time my sister and I escaped, we had a safe place to turn to. This is what Nice Place is to a lot of girls,” she observes.
The safe centre has rescued more than 500 girls from Kenya and Tanzania, and is currently sponsoring about 150 girls through high school and university. Some of the girls are even undertaking education and nursing courses, something Ms Leng’ete says is unheard of in Kimana.
Despite comprehensive laws and policies such as the Female Genital Mutilation Act (2011), the prevalence of FGM amongst the Maasai is still alarmingly high.
According to a 2019 UNFPA report on cross-border FGM, over 75 per cent of girls have experienced FGM by age 14 in the Maasai community,
Ms Leng’ete explains why it has been so difficult to eradicate the cultural practice.
“When I refused to undergo the cut at eight, I faced a lot of rejection from both my family and community. Other parents would warn their children against playing with me because I had ‘disrespected my culture’. I would even be called derogatory names because I was not a ‘woman’.
“Although I could not understand it then, I have come to understand that circumcision is done out of ‘love’ and not hatred. They want their daughters to have a sense of belonging and identity within the Maasai community. Circumcision is perceived as a way for women to earn respect and acceptance,” she says.
To curb the practice, she says a multi-structured approach that centres on the community would work.
“The Anti-FGM law is important, but you cannot shift cultural practices and attitudes using force. A more sustainable way is to engage cultural leaders and men who are marrying these girls when they are still children. You need to make them understand the effects of FGM,” says the 31-year-old.
While working with Amref as Africa’s Global End-FGM-C ambassador, she has managed to take more than 17,000 girls through Alternative Rite of Passage (ARP). However, she says the process takes at least five years to implement and is usually community-led.
“When initiating an ARP project in a community, you must first begin with addressing a community-felt need as an entry point. This could be a water shortage problem that can be mitigated by drilling boreholes. This is the best entry point for you to gain the community trust,” she explains.
Dialogues
Afterwards, Ms Leng’ete advises, dialogues concerning FGM and early marriages can follow since the people would have trusted the facilitator.
“When there is acceptance, the community itself would lead ARP ceremony and training. This is where the community commits to embracing the good cultural practices such as celebrations around womanhood, which are not harmful and do away with the bad, which is the cut,” she says.
On the traditional cutters, the human-rights activist says alternative forms of income should be generated for them because they, too, play an important role in the Anti-FGM campaign.
Also read: UN in new plan to tame cross-border FGM
She is, however, not dismissive of Anti-FGM laws but would like them to be translated into local languages and the information shared by local chiefs in barazas.
Additionally, Ms Leng’ete says political goodwill is important in the fight against the vice.
“Not all political leaders support end-FGM campaigns. Most of them don’t like talking about it because the community would think that they want to change their culture, which would make them lose votes. The politicians might not circumcise their daughters but would also not be vocal against it,” she says.
She applauds the leadership of former President Uhuru Kenyatta for making a bold commitment to ending FGM by December this year. Although it was an ambitious target, she says his declaration has made administrative officers support the cause.
Going forward, she hopes that President William Ruto fulfils his promise of channelling resources to the Anti-FGM Board as presented in the Kenya Kwanza manifesto.
Bearing in mind that more than three million girls in Africa are still at risk of undergoing FGM, the human-rights activist hopes to open another foundation in Tanzania and other countries where FGM is prevalent.
“Seeing the girls we have rescued at the foundation gives me great joy. I could not have done it for my sister Soila, but what I have done for these girls keeps me going. They are my heroes,” Ms Leng’ete concludes.
