Target communities' mindsets in fight against FGM

Some of the 24 girls rescued from Female Genital Mutilation practices during the December Holiday in Kuria East Migori County. [Sammy Omingo, Standard]

The spectre of female genital mutilation (FGM) is proving a hard one to exorcise. Recent reports indicate that girls in West Pokot have resorted to circumcising each other after elderly women shunned the practice following a government ban. The girls worry that they will not find husbands without the cut in a community in which the practice has deep-rooted cultural significance.

In Meru, women who shunned FGM complain that they are being avoided by fellow women who still conduct FGM secretly, throwing the government’s efforts to eradicate FGM into a spiral. Available statistics indicate that up to 9.3 million women and girls have undergone FGM. Threats from government, and herding the elderly women who carry out circumcision into jail is clearly not working. It is time for the government and NGOs fighting the practice to change tack.