Source: The Star
When Lillian Mwita learnt that village elders and members of her family planned to coerce her into circumcision, she ran away from home. She took refuge with anti-FGM crusaders where she lived for over five months. The nine-year-old pupil at Boherera Primary School in Migori county says that the plan to make her undergo the cut was in preparation for marriage.

"I would never accept the cut whether they brand me an outcast or not. I am young. I have big dreams for my future and what matters to me now is education," she says.

Lillian is just one of the many girls in Migori county who live with the threat of being cast out from the community hanging over their heads. Although the practice was outlawed in 2001 by the government, hundreds of girls in Kuria District in the county undergo the cut.

They are then married off when they are still very young. A new report on FGM released by Unicef in July 2013 titled Slow but Clear decline in female genital mutilation/ cutting shows that there has been a steep decline in the women percentage of women who undergo the cut. It stands at 11 per cent from 38 per cent. Impressed by the decline, Migori county women representative Dennitah Ghati says that the spirited campaign against FGM and early marriage is finally paying off.

An active FGM crusader herself, Ghati has been working closely with Education Centre for The Advancement of Women (Ecuaw) in the fight against the cut.

The involvement of the provincial administration has greatly boosted the effort to ensure that the number of FGM cases go even lower as the perpetrators fear arrest and prosecution.

The campaign has bore more fruits as research shows that more and more women and girls are raising against the practice as the years go by. Both the Kenya Demographic Health Survey (KDHS 2008/09) and the 2013 Unicef reports shows that most uncircumcised women see no benefit in undergoing the cut.

Moreover, according to the Unicef report, percentage of girls and women aged 15 to 49 years who have undergone FGM/C say there are no benefits for a girl to undergo the procedure with majority citing complications during delivery of a child.

However, there are still a large number of people, especially parents who think that if their daughters are not circumcised, chances of getting a husband and thus dowry are very thin.

Consolata Mogaya, 13, is one of the unwilling but unlucky girls who had nowhere to run when her family swooped down on her. Living in a neighbouring village of Bugumbe sub-tribe in Kuria-West District, she underwent the cut at the age of eight. "After circumcision, many girls get married. But I was lucky because my parents want me to continue going to school," she says. However, the peace and assurance in which she lives might be shattered any day and soon.

Community leaders and members are not happy. They insist that she should be married by now. Being a traditional practice, village elders and other senior members of the society take it as their sacred duty to ensure that FGM will never die.

Most parents who requested that their names be withheld confessed that they don't like the practice and they know that their daughters would have been better off without it. However they live with the chains of the society clamped down on them. "If they learn that we've told our children not to be circumcised, we are threatened and humiliated," said a mother.

Besides other ways of social isolation, no one wants to even shake hands with uncircumcised women. This is yet another stumbling block for anti-FGM campaigners as they battle against tradition to better the lives of girls.

The KDHS report shows that a large number of women get circumcised so that they are not ostracised by their society, not for any benefits. Lillian's grandmother, Nyamohanga Mwita insists that FGM is safe and therefore, does not pose any danger to women who go through it.

"It has been there for many years and l can't believe that it has become dangerous now. These are lies by especially Christians who want to separate young girls from their culture," says the 80-year-old.

She warns that young girls who don't face the knife risks curses and isolation for abandoning their culture. There is belief that unless young girls are cut, they are not full members of the community. Therefore, some of them cannot visit homes owned by FGM supporters.

This shows that even with the steady decline of the practice, sheer ignorance and conservative attitude in the society might deny anti-FGM campaigners including the government their victory for years to come.

"Many clans think that since male circumcision reduces chances of contracting HIV/AIDS and STIs, women too should go through it," Rhoda Luttah, a medical officer at the Pastor Wilfred Machage Memorial Hospital in Migori County points out.

Meanwhile, a medical officer at Masaba Health Centre (Level 3 hospital) warns that traditional circumcisers damage organs such as the anus, urethra and bladder and cause bleeding, pain and stress.

"Sensitive parts of the genitalia might be damaged. At the same time they don't use any anesthetics," she said, adding, "although many people in the community are well educated, they turn a blind eye to consequences of FGM since it is a traditional practice." Nevertheless, the war on FGM is gaining momentum as more and more girls chose to evade rather than face the knife. In Kuria, more men have realised that a woman doesn't have to be circumcised to make a good wife.

The creation of county governments takes the responsibility to quash FGM closer home. Sheila Mwita, an executive committee member in the Public Service Management in Migori county says that plans are underway to introduce a kitty that will help improve the girl child's life by sensitizing the society about her rights. Health workers at the Pastor Wilfred Machage Memorial Hospital in Migori County urge the government to accelerate more sensitization programmes against the female cut to rid off the vice in the county.

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