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REPORTS
& ANALYSIS
Factors hampering
the spread of ICTs in Kenya.
The
future for industry in Kenya.
Why
globalization is
inevitable.
Why
AIDS continues to spread in Africa.
Female circumcision: Too hard to
stop? >
Living
with HIV/Aids.
Drama plays have also been used in the fight against female
circumcision.
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FGM persists because of, rather
than in spite of, efforts aimed at wiping it out
Millions of girls across Africa
undergo the excruciating experience that accompanies the ritual of
female circumcision, now known as female genital mutilation (FGM)
because of the lifetime scars it inflicts on the girls.
The practice continues secretly, driven underground by government
edicts and ongoing campaigns by, mostly, foreign-driven activists.
Knowledge on the risks of FGM exists in the public domain but the
influence of traditional culture appears to be stronger than the modern
knowledge contradicting it. For instance, it has been reported in the
Kenyan press that medical officers in certain regions where FGM is rife
admit girls who have undergone the rite disguising them as accident
victims – complete with limb plasters.
Female sexuality has been an intriguing subject since the beginning of
time, provoking more questions than answers and which have swept the
subject under the carpet of logical thinking. Anything touching on
female sexuality is bound to ignite emotions ranging from
consternation, fear, loathing and curiosity. The subject of female
genital mutilation faces a similar range of reactions. To the modern
world, FGM is a barbaric act infringing on the rights of the girl child
to determine her own destiny, for often the practice of FGM is
associated with early marriage. To those still practicing what they
call female circumcision, the ritual is an important stage of life,
ranked alongside birth, marriage and death.
FGM has been misinterpreted by opposing forces, each eager to justify a
set of pre-conceived beliefs some of which are borne of ignorance
and/or prejudice. The pro-FGM communities cite the preservation of
cultural identity as a reason for persisting with this rite. They point
out at the teachings and advice young girls receive from wiser elders
during the initiation process and which are necessary for proper
conduct in the particular community. They argue that boys receive
teachings on sex, sexuality and behavior from elders during initiation
and that girls should be taught the same by older women. Besides, the
rite has been going for as long as anyone can remember and why should
it stop now?
Interfering with customs, so they say, is an invitation to disaster on
the land. Droughts, floods and attacks by wild animals will increase.
Individuals who don’t get circumcised will bring misfortune upon their
clans, and they will not progress in life. At worst they will be struck
by a strange, gruesome disease which will kill them slowly. The Somali,
whose form of FGM is considered extreme, say that genitals of
uncircumcised girls will grow and reach the ground.
Among communities that practice female circumcision, adult women who
were not circumcised are regarded as children and treated as such until
they go through the cut and its initiation process. To be fair, men who
aren’t circumcised in the same communities are similarly regarded as
‘boys’ and have no right to partake in "grown-up" activities including
marriage negotiations, beer drinking and inheritance of property. When
an influential man in neighboring Uganda died, it was
discovered that he hadn’t been circumcised. There was an outcry of
shame from his tribesmen who refused to allow his burial in the
ancestral homeland until he was circumcised. President Yoweri Museveni,
attending the funeral, was said to have acceded to the crowd’s demands.
Though it happened to a man, this is the kind of pressure that girls in
circumcising communities encounter. Circumcision isn’t a matter of
personal choice, but a sacred covenant granting individuals the social
acceptance and material privileges of the tribe.
Anti-FGM crusaders haven’t been left behind in displaying uninformed
bias. The anti-FGM crusade originated from the former colonizing powers
and more recently, from Africans educated in Western values. According
to them, FGM has no place in the modern world and those who practice it
are primitive, uncouth and oppressive to girls. Unfortunately, some of
these labels were devised by people who rarely see anything positive in
African traditional culture. Such people would use similar labels to
describe virtually all other aspects of African life, including its
housing, customs, spirituality, medicine and social structure.
Analysts working for the anti-FGM lobby have theorized that female
circumcision was devised by men to curb female sexual desire in a bid
to ensure total fidelity. However the situation on the ground is that
the biggest pressure for girls to get circumcised comes, not from men,
but from their mothers, grandmothers and aunts. The Kenyan dailies have
reported several cases across the country of women forcibly
circumcising another after discovering she hadn’t gone through the rite.
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The Western origins of the anti-FGM lobby have fostered a hard-line
stance by communities still practicing FGM. The communities have turned
FGM into a sign of defiance against Western culture which has invaded
their turf in the guise of pop music, television soap operas, flashy
magazines and FM radio. Such communities regard westernized Africans as
sell outs and slaves pandering to the dictates of foreign masters - to
use an oft quoted political cliché. It is not easy for the anti-FGM
message to spread across the community as educated persons who espouse
it are shunned alongside whatever they have to say.
In many developing countries, there has emerged a yawning gap between
the haves and the have-nots. The fruits of market economics have not
spread evenly among the population. On the one hand, there exists a
small segment of the population enjoying the full trappings of modern
life and who have completely abandoned the African cultures. The upper
and middle classes have even ceased communicating in mother tongues
inside their own well furnished homes.
On the other hand, there exists the
huge majority of the population, subsisting on handouts and casual
labor. These are people whose way of living closely resembles that of
their ancestors. They live in huts, cook on firewood and the children
walk barefoot to cover the long distances to school. Internet and
mobile phones represent a world from which they feel excluded.
Kenya is a country with the third worst income disparities in the
world, with 10% if the population controlling or contributing to 50% of
national economic output. Segments of the population that consider
themselves disenfranchised have lashed back against modernity as
practiced by the country’s wealthy minority. The poor have formed such
groups as "Mungiki" which advocate a return to a traditional way of
life. ("Mungiki" means "multitude of people").
Members of the Mungiki group pray
while facing mountains, spot dreadlocked hair and take snuff tobacco.
More relevantly, they also want women to be circumcised as a sign of a
return to traditions. At one time, the group circulated posters stating
a specific date by which women should have been circumcised. The date
passed without incidence and it’s now clear that Mungiki’s goal was to
use FGM as a shock tactic against Kenya’s ruling class.
Communities that practice FGM will continue doing so because they
aren’t part of the modern world that is demanding an
end to the practice. The more the concerned communities are made to
feel primitive and barbaric, the more they stick to their centuries-old
culture regardless of its current level of relevance. Culture is their
only possession and the sure bulwark against the tidal waves of
globalization. So strong is this desire to hold on to traditional
values that political leaders are powerless against it. “If I speak out
against female circumcision in my community, the people won’t vote for
me in the next election,” says a long time cabinet minister in Kenya.
The harmful effects of FGM on a woman’s life makes it necessary to
continue the campaign against this traditional practice. Excessive
bleeding is considered a necessary risk for girls going through the
rite and many deaths have resulted from this. Use of the same, crude
blades for the operation can transmit infection to several girls. The
pain and the scars of female circumcision means that girls will hardly
ever enjoy sex, something grown up women have painfully encountered
after their husbands left them for uncircumcised girls. Delivery of
babies for circumcised women is painful and difficult and is
attributable to the scars inflicted during the procedure.
Meanwhile, circumcised girls are
very likely to drop out of school to get married. The whole traditional
circumcision and initiation process makes them believe that they are
adults mature enough for a marital relationship. In the Maasai and
related communities, circumcised girls are married off in arranged
marriages with neither their consent nor prior knowledge.
The campaign against FGM will continue but it must be less
confrontational and more accommodating. It must be led by empathy for
the affected communities combined with greater understanding of the
underlying sociological factors. Solutions aimed at fighting FGM must
be homegrown and should ideally be driven by people conversant with the
prevailing socio-economic, cultural and historical factors in a given
area. Most of all, the anti FGM crusade must adopt the virtue of
patience as a long term strategy for success. Changing a people’s way
of life cannot happen overnight – indeed it cannot be expected to
happen within a generation.
In some communities, female circumcision and early marriage are not
only cultural practices; they are a reaction to the harsh physical
environment in which the communities inhabit. Pastoralist communities,
where the rite is rife, are found in exceedingly dry landscapes where
food and water are hard to come by. Prospects for jobs are zero and
education, as taught in schools, is completely irrelevant to survival
in the wilderness. Families marry off their teenage daughters because
keeping them in the homestead is too heavy an expense. “Better to marry
her off to an old man who will look after her.” The situation for boys
isn’t any different and they are expected to begin life on their own
after initiation.
For some other communities, female genital mutilation and early
marriage are a means of tackling teenage sexuality. Not only is it
shameful for a girl to get pregnant outside marriage (as it happens in
modern society) its an event with severe economic consequences for
families daily tottering on the brink of starvation. Early marriage was
conceived in such communities purely for the survival attributes
attached to it.
Anti-FGM campaigners should study the underlying issues behind the rite
and which differ from one community to the next. One successful way of
combating FGM is the use of alternative rites of passage where girls
are given all the lessons that normally accompany initiation but
without undergoing the actual physical cut. This approach has worked
because it considers the need for the community to mark such an
important stage in a woman’s life, that is, the transition from
childhood to puberty. Everyone in the communities practicing FGM is
aware of its risks. Grown up women who went through it wish it could be
reversed. The alternative rite of passage gives the community a chance
for girls to get initiated into adulthood without the risks of actual
FGM. That explains why the alternative rite of passage has probably won
more converts in the past decade than any government ban will ever do
in a century.
Education campaigns against FGM should use avenues that poverty
stricken, rural folk can identify with. Cabinet Ministers, Members of
Parliament and Civil Servants are highly influential among rural
communities where their opinion carries great weight. The ongoing
awareness programs against HIV/AIDS have managed to bring discussion of
the disease to such public forums as weddings, funerals, school
meetings and church sermons. A similar approach to FGM could be highly
effective among affected communities as these are their places of
socialization. Dances, song and feasts are the chief means by which
people are informed of trends within the tribe. This aspect of
traditional culture could certainly play a leading role in the fight
against FGM. It can educate the people without causing offence.
African traditional society is a paternalistic society where nothing
much can be achieved without the involvement of men. One woman in the
Tharaka-Nithi district of Kenya was seen on television saying that
whenever a visitor found her and the children at home, the visitor
would say “there’s nobody in that home.” That's because the decision
makers are the men. Anti-FGM crusaders are known for
their militant approach against male domination but such approach in
culturally conservative communities is likely to be counter productive.
Men
are the focal point in charting the direction for the community and
their involvement is vital in fostering desired change.
As Prof Bethwel Ogot, a historian in Kenya, is quoted as saying; “In
Africa, whenever there is a fight between the old guard and young
turks, the old guard come out on top.”
© 2004
Godfrey Kimega
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