Source: The Star
Anti-FGM Board Chairperson Linah Kilimo with Christine Nanjals who is Director of the Unit of Prosecutors at the DPPs handling the FGM cases.

Linah Chebii Kilimo, the chairperson of the newly established Anti-Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) Board, is not embarrassed to say she would have been a circumcised woman today.

Thanks to her principles right from childhood, she went against the grain and literally ran away from home to escape the knife just as the circumciser waited for her.

This was unlike thousands of other girls in the Marakwet community who brave their community's culture and traditions every year to go through the dehumanising female circumcision popularly known as Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).

Kilimo explains how she escaped from FGM, the pain of seeing her kin killed by bandits in Kerio Valley and why she eventually joined politics. She wanted a bigger platform to liberate girls from the FGM vice and her she says her new appointment could not have come at a better time.

Kilimo says she had to jump from a Matatu in Kitale and run for safety in Nairobi as her brothers took her home in Marakwet to undergo the compulsory procedure supported by her family including his father Kapcharus Kiplimes and mother Tula.

At 14 years, Kilimo says her time to face the knife had come and the parents along with clan elders informed her that she was to undergo circumcision.

"It was such a serious issue that the clan said I was blocking my own younger sisters and age mates from being circumcised because being the eldest among them, I had to face the cut first then open the way for others. But I had already sworn that it would only happen on my dead body," she says.

She remembers the teachings of her Sunday School teacher about the Bible in the book of Galatians Chapter 5:1-6 which talks about circumcision of the heart and not of the body. The teachings were inspiration to her because she had been taught that sticking to God's teachings was the only way to heaven.

"I told myself that my Sunday school teacher was right and I would not accept to miss heaven by allowing my body to be circumcised," says the 48-year-old former legislator who once served as an assistant minister for Co-operatives.

Kilimo had seen her colleagues in the village go through FGM and drop out of school for early marriage. She had also encountered a former TTC tutor in Nyanza known as Chief Labore who always talked of ladies in the Luo community who were educated, drove good cars and were influential to the extent of being magistrates with powers to jail even men.

"His words convinced me that education was the key to better life. Because if I got education I would get a good job and drive a car. But if I accepted to be cut then I would drop out of school and rot in the village," she says.

She strongly resisted FGM and told herself that she would rather die and part with her parents than face the cut. She was ready to take all the risks to escape from FGM.

Her brothers were left amazed when she jumped out of the matatu in Kitale and escaped into the bush and later came across a vehicle which was heading toward Eldoret. Once in Eldoret she jumped into a bus heading to Nairobi. She had earlier on lived with some relatives and friends in Nairobi.

Once in Nairobi she went to the house of a family who were friends to her brother. She only remembers the family as Baba and Mama Rispa. She narrated to them her problem and they hid her in their bedroom until the following day when they handed her over to one of her teachers, Stephano Mahiano.

The teacher was a strong Christian and arranged for her to join a group of worshippers going to Mombasa for Christian fellowship camp. She was in Mombasa for two weeks with the group.

?It's while there that she decided to write a letter to her parents through her brother indicating that she would jump into the Indian Ocean and die if the family did not want to respect her wish to remain uncircumcised.

"I was ready to take my life rather than go through what I knew to be immoral as per teachings of the bible," she says. She explained to the team she was with about her tribulations and they prevailed on her not to do anything bad.

She returned to Nairobi where she lived with the family of a Mr Kitur until her brothers asked her parents not to force circumcision on her. The parents dropped their demand to have her circumcised and Kilimo returned home.

She proceeded with her education at Madaraka Estate Primary School and then joined State House Girls High School and later at Moi Forces Academy. Soon after her education she was employed by the Kenya Commercial Bank as a clerk where she worked in Nairobi, Kisumu, Nakuru and then Eldoret.

She even got married in her Marakwet community to engineer Philemon Cheptarus Kilimo with whom they have five children, despite the fact that the community did not allow uncircumcised girls to get married in the area.

"Deep inside me I still thought I had duty to save the girl child in my community from FGM and my community was facing serious challenges including insecurity and poverty caused by general underdevelopment," said Kilimo.

She soon joined the Education Center for Women in Development (EWD), then headed by Ambassador Tabitha Seii, where she embarked on activism to educate her people on the dangers of FGM.

"Now that God had a saved me from the FGM monster I prayed to him to guide me onto the next stage where I could offer better help to my people," she says.

One day in 1995 while in Nakuru attending a church she received information that more than 30 people had been killed by cattle rustlers in Marakwet. She again turned to prayer and the book of Nehemiah in the Bible.

"I said to myself that if there was no one to save my people, then I would do it. As a woman I also knew that people would hear my cry for the women and children who were being killed by bandits", says Kilimo.

Come 1997, Kilimo, popularly referred to as "Ma Chebiwott" (Mama Chebiwott), resigned from her job at KCB and plunged into politics. She contested the Marakwet East Parliamentary seat on an SDP ticket but she only got six votes.

"People first refused to vote for me because my community considered women as children who could not be leaders," she says. But she never gave up and intensified her activism in the area educating people on FGM and fighting for social justice.

Come 2002 she was so popular and was elected on a Narc party ticket despite her area being a strong Kanu zone. In 2007 she retained her seat on a Kenda party ticket in the area which was now a strong ODM stronghold. However, she lost the seat in the last election due to the URP wave.

"It's been a long journey for me but I look back with a lot of pride and thank God for giving the chance to serve my people," she says.

Today Kilimo is a household name in Marakwet and she says that she has managed to give identity and dignity to her people. Through her efforts, many other organisations including World Vision, joined the anti-FGM crusade in Marakwet. While in Parliament, Kilimo, with nominated MP Amina Abdalla, jointly fought to have the anti-FGM Act in place.

Kilimo is happy that she has contributed to the reduced FGM cases in Marakwet and records now indicate that the area has many girls in schools than boys. Transition and retention levels for girls in schools have also increased.

It's due to this passion to fight FGM that President Uhuru Kenyatta appointed her to be chairperson of the new anti-female genital mutilation (FGM) board. "I am proud of the appointment and although this is a new institution which I will develop and team up with the other stakeholders to take the fight against FGM to the next level," says Kilimo.

She regrets that even though the anti-FGM Act has been in place for about three years, little has been done to implement it. "Our girls in some communities continue to be exposed to FGM which is a very retrogressive practice in the modern world," she says.

The former MP has taken personal initiative to begin distributing copies of the Anti-FGM Act to all stakeholders and communities so that they can read and understand it as one way to implement the new laws.

"I was really saddened when a little innocent girl in Narok was recently exposed to FGM causing her to bleed to death. This to me was a wake up call that we need to put in more effort to fight FGM," she says.

The Director of Public Prosecutions has set up a unit comprising 20 prosecutors to help deal with FGM cases and Kilimo says this was wise move and a clear indication that the government is determined to stop FGM in the country once and for all.

"The decision by the President to establish the board and also appoint me is also an indicator of his commitment to ensure that all girls in the country enjoy a dignified life and have opportunity to pursue their lifetime dreams," said Kilimo.

"God has always led me where he wants me to be and in what he wants me to do. Now he wants to fight FGM and I will obey him," she says.

Kilimo believes that had she been circumcised, she would not have made the difference she has achieved in her Marakwet community.

• Kenya