Stigma, rejection forces married women to undergo the cut

Kenya: She had become a black sheep in her husband’s family. Other women in the community avoided her like plague.

Mary *, 21, faced humiliation because according to the Kuria cultural beliefs, she was a disgust to ancestors for refusing to undergo Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).

She thought by defying the cut for more than six years, she had overcome challenges associated with the retrogressive culture.

But shortly after getting married, she yielded to pressure from the community to go for FGM, a month after giving birth.

On November 29 last year, Mary gained acceptance in the community after years of being treated like an outcast in Komotobo village in Kuria East: She was no longer Omosagane (Kuria name for a girl who has not undergone FGM).

“I was isolated because all misfortunes that befell my husband’s family were blamed on me,” she narrated.

When a cow died in the family everyone pointed an accusing finger at her since she was “different”.

According to Kuria traditions, a married woman who has not undergone FGM is not allowed to answer a call of nature near the cattle shed.

“If crops failed in the village, i would be blamed for disappointing ancestors,” says Mary.

She could not be allowed to mingle with other women during events to celebrate those who had undergone the cut.

No one would allow her cross their farms because she was considered a curse.

Although villagers say Mary voluntarily chose to undergo the cut, she says she just found herself in the hands of the circumciser at around four in the morning.

“I don’t know how I reached where the girls were being cut, but all I recall is me lying down on dew and a tap on my thighs that the act was complete,” she narrated.

On the day she was circumcised, her husband’s grandmother who had previously shunned her as a bad omen in the family celebrated and even slaughtered chicken for her.

She had won the dismissive family into accepting her through the cut.

Mary is just one of the more than 200 married women who after successfully avoiding the cut, embraced it in the last festive season.

 

Samuel Ng’oina, the secretary of Nyabasi clan of elders said every year, thousands of married women are circumcised willingly or unwillingly. And the rough road of humiliation that Mary found herself on is the same every other uncircumcised married woman is subjected to until they give in to FGM, says Mr Ng’oina.

Major challenge

“We don’t bother them (uncircumcised girls) very much, but we only wait until they are married. That is the time pressure mounts on them from the families they get married to. The uncircumcised woman will never be allowed to associate with any woman who is cut because they will call her Irikuneni or Omusagane (uncircumcised girls),” says the elder.

Pastor Samuel Mwita of Maranatha Faith Assemblies in Kuria, who leads campaigns against FGM, admits that the major challenge is the resolve by young women to shun the retrogressive practice after marriage.

“Stigma and rejection of uncircumcised women is a major setback we encounter because when most of the success cases of anti-FGM culture have been married off, they tend to give in to be cut to gain acceptance by the womenfolks in the community,” says the pastor.

“There is no woman, however strong she could be at heart who can endure the heaviness of being bullied by even small girls who have been circumcised because they are considered as superiors just because they are cut,” adds Ng’oina.

However, many girls who are not cut overcome the stigma by resolving to work hard in school to earn a standing in a class of ‘uncut but super-intelligent and rich women’.

According to Kuria West MP Mathias Robi, all women from Kuria who have triumphed academically and socially never underwent the heinous cultural practice.

“There are many examples around our region who are prominent women principals and headmistresses of various schools in this part of the country who defied the tradition and found their way to books,” says Robi.

The MP blames the culture for under development in most parts of the region.

He, however, says the rate at which girls are enrolling in secondary schools and institutions of higher learning is testimony to the success of anti-FGM campaign.

All the leaders concur that what drives the cultural rite is stigma and rejection of uncircumcised women.

“That’s why girls who have been rescued from the rites are seriously inducted to develop strong self-esteem that can drive them to work harder in studies so as to become independent in their thoughts by achieving their career dreams and stand higher in the superstitious community,” says Pastor Mwita.

He notes that for every ten girls who undergo FGM, eight are married off immediately after healing.

FGM, to many members of the community is just like a license to marriage and adulthood.

 

The cleric blames the practice on low transition rate of girls from primary to secondary schools. For instance, the married lady who got circumcised to gain acceptance by her in-laws, was bright in class and all teachers at Samu Academy were proud of her.

But the star was dimmed only a few years later after she dropped out of school before even sitting for her Kenya Certificate of Primary Education and got married.

Mary is among thousands of girls in Kuria whom activists want to empower in overcoming beliefs that can drag them into early marriages at the expense of education.

At Komotobo Mission in Kuria East, more than 200 girls are rescued each year, during the circumcision season.

At the rescue centre, the girls are taught all the aspects of the negative culture that is associated with FGM.

The Kuria West Member of Parliament asked the government to fully enforce the FGM law and ensure families that perpetrate the practice are punished.

“If the government through local administrators at the grassroots had goodwill in enforcing the anti-FGM laws, then FGM would not be going on as we are witnessing,” the MP says. The victims name has been changed to protect her identity.