As Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) continues to be a stubborn practice among some groups and individuals in the Kisii community, one woman has promised to fight it single-handedly before it sweeps off all innocent girls who are victims in the community.
“Even after the serious effort by the government to discourage the practice, there are still a few groups of people practising it secretly among their children or other people’s children to get money,” said Alice Nyaranda.
Nyaranda, who is the Head teacher of Ikobo Comprehensive School and Chairman of KNUT Gucha Branch, said the practice of removing a small part of their private parts causes great havoc for the rest of their lives.
She parades the deprivation of sexual enjoyment by the victims when they reach the age of maturity for marriage, excessive bleeding during the cut and psychological trauma on the initiates.
The chairman said that she had formed a group of her informants, including her former pupils and the current ones, to help identify the private practitioners of FGM and report them to the police to be arrested and brought to court.
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Nyaranda, who was speaking to parents in a public baraza, discouraged them from inflicting pain on their children because they are tied by some archaic community beliefs that have been bypassed with time.
She said that the practice is bad because it gives a false impression of adulthood to the initiates, leading them into the snares of premarital sex that result in teenage pregnancies and early marriages at the expense of education.
“The church is clear on its stand against female genital mutilation, and we are going to stand with it to fight the vice in society,” she said.
For the girls who dropped out of school because of early pregnancies or marriages, she asked parents to return them to school to complete their education, to enable them to become better mothers for the upbringing of their children.
She asked for guidance and counselling to offer services to such vulnerable female children by volunteering as they move to their homes and encouraging them.
She asked the Nyumba Kumi groups and clan elders if there was more work in the villages to reclaim such wayward children, in addition to discouraging communities from indulging in making and using Chang’aa, the illicit alcohol.
By Enock Okong’o
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