When I was young, I thought that female genital mutilation or Tum, as we called the ceremony, was no different from the other practices and occasions girls were expected to attend.
At that time I didn’t know that the majority of other tribes in Kenya don’t practise FGM, let alone all the other people outside my country who did not follow the practice. In fact, I loved the ceremony, the dancing, the singing the celebration – and eating lots of meat.
FGM is carried out in two stages: the first is the removal of the clitoris, which is done within seconds. Around five in the morning, immediately after the girls have been taken to the river to take a cold shower (meant to make them numb), they come to sit on stones that are arranged in line in an open field, with everyone closely watching.
At the entrance to the field, two men stand with spears crossing overhead, which the girls run under as they take their place in the field. During my childhood, as many as 30 girls sometimes took part. Most of the time you would see a smile on the faces of the girls after this first stage. It didn’t scare me then.
The second stage comes immediately after, but the difference is that only the women who have already undergone this stage themselves are permitted to take part. Therefore the younger girls and the men have no clue what’s going on. And this is one of the reasons that FGM continues; no one knows the details. If men understood what exactly took place, they wouldn’t let their daughters go through it.
The young girls have no idea what is coming in the second stage – the mothers remember, but believe they have no choice. The powerful men have not said stop and so it simply continues. It is on no one’s political agenda.
One morning I was curious to find out. I sneaked into the nearby bush where it was happening, and wasn’t noticed until I had witnessed everything that I needed to know and leaves had been spread on the ground for the girls to lie on their backs. No matter how many girls are having it done, it is always carried out by one circumciser, who uses one knife to cut them all one after the other.
In this case my cousin was the first on the line. Six other women pinned her down, holding her head, hands, legs, with one sitting on her chest, overpowering her completely, with more than 10 other women watching while singing. The cutter, with her homemade curved knife, was bending over her.
When all my cousin’s genitals were out, there was nothing left but red, bare flesh, I realised something was terribly wrong. My cousin lay naked and screaming on the ground. She was to stay in a secluded place for a month with her legs tied together to help close up the wound, leaving a tiny hole and achieving a new shape altogether. All this for the sake of a rite of passage and transition from childhood to adulthood. Failure to undergo FGM renders you unmarriable because you are seen as a child, no matter your age. You will be an outcast to the community, shown no respect and be locked out of certain activities in the community.
FGM and anything related to it is never discussed at home or anywhere else: it is regarded as a taboo subject.
After watching my cousin’s cutting, I ran home, scared and sick. I asked my mum that evening why it was happening but she was not allowed to discuss it. Women therefore suffer silently through the pain, trauma, bleeding, during sexual intercourse, complications during childbirth.
The community deals with FGM-related complications by creating scapegoats and superstitions. For instance, if a girl bleeds heavily after the cut, it is believed that she has been bewitched or has had a sexual affair with a man the previous night.
If a woman has prolonged labour, which is very common, as the hole left after FGM is too small for the baby to pass through, and the cervix cannot expand due to the scar tissue, then it is believed that this woman was unfaithful to her husband.
The practice of FGM continues today because there is very little awareness-raising in the communities. It remains unchallenged so it goes on.
A recent poster campaign competition in my home town sponsored by the Guardian was an eye-opener for both men and women, illiterate and literate. It started a conversation. The young girls who took part in the poster competition were given a chance to speak up for themselves. I am from a society which believes that girls are a source of wealth, the bride price that they fetch after the cut is a ticket to marriage.
The stigma needs to be fought, girls and women need to be empowered, the whole community need to be sensitised on the effects of FGM. The media needs to create awareness by talking openly about FGM. If we can continue to team up with the journalists, bring together local radio stations to discuss it, and train journalists on how to talk openly about FGM, I believe we have a chance of bringing the practice to an end.
