© 2024 KRWG
News that Matters.
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Traditional African Communities Say Female Genital Mutilation Is An Essential Cultural Passage

Andrew Thompson

 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2P0fU9INWuI&feature=youtu.be

Earlier this year the Obama Administration called for the eradication of female genital mutilation and announced a major study measuring its prevalence in the US.

The traditional practice of female circumcision is carried out in 29 African countries, as well as among African immigrant communities in America. However, while western leaders condemn the practice, traditional African communities say the custom plays an integral role in the continuation of their culture.
 

 
In Kajiado County, Kenya KinikinSaningo is getting married in a traditional Maasai ceremony. Her fourteen year old younger sister MontanickSaningo watches on, knowing as a Maasai girl she’s expected to follow in her footsteps; to undergo ritual circumcision before being married off.

Emotions within the tribe run high, Kinikin won’t see her family for at least a year, ensuring she breaks old childhood ties and settles into her new adult life in her husband’s tribe. Montanick is poised to enter adulthood, but is distressed by the traditional Maasai initiation of female circumcision.

“If my father says I must be circumcised, I will be circumcised, but for me I don’t want it to happen,” she says.

Twelve year old Kosenja Pau is also approaching womanhood, but unlike Montanick’s parents, her parents believe female circumcision is cruel and a traditional custom that should be abandoned.

“My mother, father and I agree that circumcision causes girls many problems and difficulties,” she says.

While the Maasai’s traditional lifestyle is held up proudly by Kenya and viewed with wonder by international tourists, the circumcision of girls known as female genital mutilation by Western society, but called Emurata by the Maasai has been criminalized by the Kenyan Government since 2011.

There’s been an intensifying global campaign to eradicate the practice, which is seen as dangerous, painful, sexually repressive and often carried out against girls’ wishes.

Earlier this year the Obama Administration called for the eradication of female genital mutilation and announced a major study measuring its prevalence in the US.

The traditional practice of female circumcision is carried out in 29 African countries, as well as among African immigrant communities in America. Maasai elders say the circumcision of both girls and boys is an essential rite of passage, which maintains their unique culture in the face of encroaching westernization.

Earlier this year hundreds of Maasai left their tribes, travelling miles to Kajiado town to protest against the laws criminalizing the practice.

The protest was sparked when the guardians of a thirteen year old girl appeared at the local court charged with murder, after the girl bled to death following a botched circumcision.

Massai grandmother, Nditi was once an Engamuratani. She says she was circumcising girls for years before she lost most of her eyesight.

“The initiation is very painful, but it is over quickly. A small part of the body is cut then some milk put on it, because when it’s cut it bleeds,” she says.

She says it’s integral to the social order and structure of the tribe with the period of circumcision determining levels of respect and how tribe members interact.

“Circumcision to Maasai ladies is important and it is something we can’t leave. That is the culture of Maasai. If you are not circumcised nobody will marry you, you will just be a useless person to the community,” she says.

“If we stop circumcision, there will be no respect in the tribe for the culture.”

Montanick’s Dad, Saningo Kurash believes in the practice, but says he won’t force her into it.

“If my daughter comes to me and says she doesn’t want to be circumcised, I will not circumcise her, but for me I want to circumcise my daughters,” he says.

“I don’t want to stop it. I want it to continue, because it has been the Maasai culture from the beginning.”

Montanick fears telling her father that she doesn’t want to be circumcised.

“There is a level of respect between a girl and a father. There are some things you can’t tell your father. You must go through your mum,” she says.

Her mum Pukes Saningo says she was circumcised at Montanick’s age and wants the practice to continue.

“We just want to follow our culture. The government doesn’t want girls to be circumcised, but they can’t stop it,” she says.

The pressure on the girls to undergo circumcision can be immense. Refusal brings shame on families. Some girls are ostracized and others forced to flee in fear of repercussions that can sometimes be violent. Ten year old Jacqueline Shong from another tribe was forced to flee to a rescue centre for girls.

She says she overheard her father saying he’d found a man for her to marry and he was starting to make preparations for her to undergo female genital mutilation. She ran away with a friend, escaping in a potato lorry, but is now cut off from her family.

Back in Kajiado County, Kosenja is adamant that she won’t be circumcised.

“I’m refusing to be circumcised because you can die. There is a lot of bleeding,” she says.

“The person who does the circumcision uses one razor blade to circumcise everybody. I could get aids.”

However unlike many other girls, she has the strong support of her mother, Kindergarten teacher Shitina Pau.

“I’m wearing my ornaments. I’m keeping my cattle, sheep and goats at home and I’m not losing my culture and I don’t circumcise my girls,” she says.

As the sun sets over the Maasai plains, Nditi lays her grandchildren down to bed for the night.

She’s close to her young granddaughters now, but may eventually be torn apart, as they grow into a society that’s inevitably changing; one which she says she’s finding difficult to accept.