Violence Against Women
Parents in Kisii were on Friday discouraged from forcing their daughters to under the outlawed Female Genital Mutilation and instead opt for an alternative rite of passage.
Speaking at Nyatieko Secondary School where 29 girls graduated through the alternative rite of passage,Turning Point Counseling Solution chairman John Macharia said the young girls' rights should be respected.
He said in the alternative rite, the girls were given certificates to signify their graduation after a three-day extensive training on their health, their anatomy, nutrition, HIV/Aids lessons, life skills training and teaching on effects of FGM.
Macharia said that during the training the girls said it is their parents, especially mothers, who collude with relative to make them undergo the outdated practice. "The girls have today vowed to champion their rights by discouraging those who attempt to practise FGM on them," he said.
Macharia said his organisation has been working with other stakeholders to ensure that the vice is eradicated from all communities. "We are not saying that traditions should not be observed but rather, let us abandon the bad ones that have negative effects," he said.
Macharia hit out at traditional circumcisers telling them to look for "alternative way of earning a living instead of relying on an old fashioned, outdated practice whose days are numbered"