Maasai now abandoning retrogressive rituals

By Jeckonia Otieno

The Maasai community is slowly abandoning retrogressive cultural rituals, especially those that subjugate women. What was initially regarded taboo subject can now be discussed in the open without fear of intimidation.

Among subjects that caused jitters are HIV/Aids, female genital cutting and early marriages. HIV/Aids is openly discussed and even those infected with HIV have come out because stigma has greatly reduced.

The problem is with the other two. Jonathan Kupere, an elder in Kajiado’s Mbilikani area says before it was not easy for women, men and children to sit together to and talk about HIV/Aids. But now the spread has been curtailed because people are checking their status and taking precautionary measures.

“Unlike before when age mates would share wives, people realised that this practice was creating more harm than good. Through dialogue they stopped and many sought testing to know their status,” says Kupere.

The old man also intimates that unlike the past, many men are embracing the idea of using condoms. The kind of community dialogue that has ben used to make people aware about HIV/AIDS is yet to be embraced in dealing with female genital cutting and early marriages because unlike HIV which is a foreign subject, genital cutting is deeply-rooted in the culture and almost always leads to early marriage.

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Cutting also still leads to spread of HIV especially when cutting equipment is shared among girls.

Many deaths

However, the battle against HIV/Aids in the area has had it setbacks, especially after Mbilikani Village Aid Clinic closed its doors due to external interference.

Elizabeth Lengepe, a community worker in the area says that many people depended on the clinic for their medicine to tackle the virus and people would come from far to be treated because of the confidentiality.

Lengepe says, “When the hospital closed shop, many people defaulted and this led to many deaths since most would not go to the district hospital in Loitokitok for various reasons.”