Emerging trends hamper the fight against FGM

Kajiado

Wednesday, August 16, 2023

KNA by Rop Janet

Medicalization of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and Cross-border cutting have been listed as some of the emerging trends in the fight against the outlawed practice.

Despite enactment of legislation which criminalizes FGM in Kenya, the practice still continues albeit in secrecy to avoid prosecution.

The use of rogue medical practitioners to conduct FGM has been on the increase in the recent past and has been cited as a major hindrance in the fight against the practice as it is hard to trace.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), medicalization is when a health-care provider performs FGM whether in a public or private clinic, at home or elsewhere.

Cross-border cutting occurs when a girl is sneaked to the neighboring countries through the border to undergo the cut.

It is common among communities that live along the border such as Maasai, Kuria, Pokot and Somalia where girls are sneaked across the porous borders to Tanzania, Uganda and Somalia to procure FGM so as to avoid arrest.

According to Catherine Mutinda, Kajiado County Gender Officer, there is need to strengthen coordination and implementation of existing legislation so as to combat perpetuation of the vice.

Speaking at an Anti- FGM forum, Mutinda revealed that although the prevalence rate of FGM in Kajiado County has dropped from 78 per cent in 2014 to 63 per cent in 2022 (Kenya Demographic Health Survey report), many girls were still at risk due to the emerging factors.

“Apart from cross-border cutting and medicalization of FGM, other worrying trends that are emerging include cutting of married women, infants and girls as young as five years old.” Said Mutinda.

Celebrations after a girl undergoes the cut are no longer done by the community publicly and this has also contributed to many cases going undetected.

Mary Taiko, a Director at the Gender Department reiterated the negative physical and psychological impact FGM poses to the life of the girls and women.

Some of the health risks include severe pain, excessive bleeding, genital tissue swelling, exposure to Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), urination problems, impaired wound healing, chronic genital infections and even death.

FGM in Kenya is a criminal offence under the prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation Act 2011, Children’s Act and the penal code.

Any person who conducts FGM or pays someone else to conduct the practice or provides his premises for it to be carried out, is guilty of an offence. Failure to report the act and possession of instruments used in FGM is also a crime.

A person convicted of these offenses can go to prison for between three and seven years, and be fined up to shs. 500,000.

Courtesy ; K. N. A