‘I’m sorry,’ circumciser apologises to girls

Not long ago, a girl lost her life while undergoing female genital mutilation in Elang’ata, Kajiado West. The mood is sombre when we arrive in the remote area. A crowd is pooling and in their midst, a grey-haired woman (perhaps an octogenarian) looks on quietly.

Esther Oseu, with her strong, slim figure and greying, kinky hair, rolled back in natural contours, stands out from the crowd, even though everyone is dressed in an assortment of red, white and blue Maasai regalia.

The meeting is a sombre one, and the breeze does little to uplift Esther’s spirits.

In December 2014, a girl’s life was cut short by the swift slash of a traditional circumciser’s scalpel.

As one of the women narrates the unfortunate demise of the young woman, the expression on Esther’s face is one of anguish.

Everyone was astonished. She is the only girl in recent times to have died undergoing the cut,” she says.

However, what bothers Esther even more is the role she may have played in the girl’s death – keeping the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) alive in her community. For 16 years, up to 2008, she sneaked along footpaths in the arid area, on her way to ‘transitioning’ girls into womanhood.

“I never fully understood what I was doing,” Esther says when we ask her for an interview. “This is a tradition that was passed down to us by our forefathers; we had little option but to carry on with it.”

Countless girls (some in the crowd) were circumcised by Esther. It is a job she inherited from her mother, who stopped the work due to old age.

“She was growing old and frail. It was apparent that she would stop circumcising girls. As her daughter – who diligently studied the procedure every time she performed it – I was naturally expected to inherit her position. The old men pronounced blessings upon me when I took over the job,” she says, staring at the ground at her feet.

It is the same earth that soaked the blood of many a young girl as Esther performed ‘the cut’ on them. For more than a decade, she rode roughshod over the questions raised by opponents of female genital cutting. She recalls listening to talks on radio but not giving them a second thought. It would take more than radio campaigns to convince her to rest her tools of trade.

“It had occurred to me that circumcising girls was against the laws of the country. I realised I would be captured and put behind bars if I was caught, but I didn’t stop. It was only when I was won over by the church that I stopped carrying out the practice.”

Not only did she find out that female circumcision was an intolerable crime, she realised that “it didn’t improve a woman’s health nor make her life better.”

The cut, she says, bore no importance to the life of the girl. It only caused immense pain, and sometimes damage, or even death.

Mariam Richad, a married 26-year-old, is just one among the many girls who sat on a sheet of animal skin for Esther to circumcise them. Today though, she is Esther’s ‘friend’; offering to interpret the old woman’s words from Maa to Kiswahili.

“I am sorry to all the girls who suffered the cut at my hands, including her,” says Esther, pointing at Mariam. “Had I known much earlier that I was harming more than helping, I wouldn’t have done it.”

Culture, she adds, has been the impetus behind the survival of the negative cultural practice. A girl who has not been cut is said to attract curses to her family. She is pronounced an infidel and banished. She is stripped of the right to call herself a member of the community.

Furthermore, it is considered taboo for a girl to be pregnant before circumcision. It is said to be an offence against the ancestors of the community and the girl’s parents are required to offer a cleansing goat or cow to the circumciser to perform the rite before the birth of the baby.

The pain of FGM is one Esther is well aware of; she experienced it, as did her mother and those who came before her.

In the old days, says Esther, circumcision was done publicly and celebrated with singing, dancing, merriment and spectacle. Enkamuratani (the circumciser) was a celebrated figure. Today though, having once danced in the spotlight herself, she knows the age of enkamuratani is coming to an end.

Some girls in Elang’ata – and in many cultures that practice FGM – are still cut, albeit secretively. In Esther’s opinion, the reduced number of cases is attributable to scaled government efforts against the practice. Esther still receives invitations by women who want their girls cut but she turns them down, citing the law and the negative effects associated with the practice.

“There is not much fanfare nowadays,” she says. “Girls are circumcised in isolation because those involved understand the repercussions if caught by authorities.”

Though frail and old, Esther has been approached by a not-for-profit to join the war against FGM. Through Action Aid, who have set up at Elang’ata, Esther has been involved in organised talks to women in her community to shun the practice.

Destroys life

“It is the least I could do to reverse the damage already done. The God I serve now does not fancy FGM; He has better plans for girls and I am aware of that even as I grow old,” she says.

At the time she chose to leave the ‘job’, Esther had conviction beyond doubt that she had made the right decision. Though she earned Sh1,000 for every girl she circumcised – a figure she postulates would have risen had she kept at it – she says there is no joy in money that “destroys a girl’s life.”

She is cognisant of the fact that the war against the female cut may not be won in her time. However, when it is done, her name will remain etched in the victory. And that, she says, is something worth looking forward to.