Kenya to Ban Female Genital Excision

Kenyan women this week won a 20-year battle to outlaw genital excision of young girls, but doubts remain over whether the government will vigorously enforce the ban.

Even after President Daniel Arap Moi promised to sign legislation criminalizing the practice, many parents defied him by subjecting their daughters to the procedure.

“The coming months will tell whether the government is determined to educate people about this backward practice and prosecute those who break the law,” said Beth Mugo, an opposition parliament member who fought for the law.

The new law makes it a crime to perform the procedure on girls younger than 17. Parents and medical providers can receive a minimum of 12 months in prison and a fine of about $630, nearly twice the average annual wage in Kenya.

The practice is rampant in Kenya and much of Africa, especially in rural areas. Many ethnic groups regard it as a rite of passage from childhood to womanhood and argue that it stifles promiscuity by reducing a woman’s sexual pleasure.

Studies have shown that nearly 40% of Kenyan women between the ages of 15 and 49 have undergone the procedure, in which all or part of the clitoris is removed. In this East African nation, health officials say genital excision is routinely performed on girls as young as 6.

Opponents say the practice carries deadly risks, including infection, death during childbirth and the spread of HIV, because the same unsanitary knives are used in multiple operations.

Only a handful of countries in Africa have outlawed the practice. Five years ago, Kenya’s male-dominated legislature bowed to pressure from leaders of ethnic groups and voted down a bill to ban it. But this year, the same prohibitions were included on a bill offering broad legal protections to Kenyan children.

Speaking this week at a rally marking the 38th anniversary of Kenya’s independence from Britain, Moi warned that anyone found performing the procedure on young girls would be thrown into prison.

“I’m ordering the police and urging peaceful members of the public to be watchful,” he said. “If parents of the girls do not take heed of the new law, the government will act according to human rights and protect the children.”

Critics have questioned Moi’s motives. They say he was pandering to women who have recently protested his decision to reduce the number of seats allocated to female Kenyan lawmakers in the newly inaugurated East Africa Parliament, which also includes representatives from Uganda and Tanzania.

But Mugo and others said some ethnic groups might heed the head of state and halt the tradition.

Still, there was evidence Friday that persuading Kenyans to end the practice would be an uphill battle.

Jimmy Nuru Angwenyi, a lawmaker from the president’s party, told reporters that the procedure should be promoted and that he would even pay the cost for any girls who wished to undergo it.

Kenyan media reported Friday that nurses and untrained practitioners performing the procedure did a brisk business a day after Moi announced the ban. One newspaper described scenes in which women in traditional attire sang songs in the market area where their daughters were being “initiated.” In one small town outside Nairobi, the capital, about a dozen high school students fled their homes to avoid the procedure.

Judy Thongori, head of litigation for the Kenyan chapter of the International Federation of Women Lawyers, said the government and other interest groups needed to launch a massive education campaign highlighting the dangers of female genital excision. Although her group advocates criminal penalties, it realizes that taking cases to court would be challenging, she said.

“In Kenya society, it’s very difficult for a daughter to stand up to her father,” she said. “If he’s in jail, who is going to pay her school fees or raise her other brothers and sisters? We need to put the fear of the law in these people, but we also need to show them why it’s not the right thing.”