CIRCUMCISERS VOW TO END MUTILATION read more..

Circumcisers should be given alternative work

In Kajiado Central,agroup of’career’ women circumcisers led by Margaret Koilel cametogether and announcedto an unbelieving audience that they will nolonger perform the ‘cut’on girls and women, evenat a fee. FGM is endemic in Kajiado, Narok, Isiolo,Turkana, Marsabit, and Garissa counties.Could it be that all what is needed for FGM to pale into our background is adecision by the principal actors to ‘resign’? MsKoilel said she could nolonger live with the guilt of seeing her patients go through complications
even death, as a result of her work. FGM and early marriages are joined at the hip as one triggersthe other. They are also to blame for over 70 per centof teenage pregnancieswhere they are prevalent.Alternate rites of passage,like teaching the girlsessences of their sexu-ality without involving the cut, have previously come into a cropper as most traditionists still insist on the cut. Probably, the government should approach those who derive their livelihoods through the ‘cut’ and give them other jobs.