England’s Daily Mail Newspaper, recently revealed in an expose how women and girls from Northern Kenya, resident in Britain, sneak back home to secretly undergo female genital mutilation (FGM).
Either forced by their families or just the urge to conform to culture, most of women, majority of them from the Somali community, were said to have flown back to Kenya on FGM “holidays”, mainly in the month of August.
Once in Nairobi, some travel to their rural homes in the North-Eastern regions to undergo already arranged FGM rituals, while others go to secret clinics in Eastleigh where trained clinicians or traditional cut operators perform the ritual.
Taking up the cue from the Daily Mail, the People Daily team delved deep into the alleys of Eastleigh on the trail of people who arrange FGM for diaspora clients.
As it turned out, it is an open secret, that many parents who have settled in Europe travel back home with their girl children to have them undergo the cut. At a clinic in Eastleigh, a nurse who spoke in strict confidence revealed that for between Sh4,000 and Sh10,000, she visits homes to perform the cut.
She took us to one house where a 24-year-old girl was recovering after being operated on. She says, due to risks involved in carrying out the traditional FGM, where the genitals are mutilated before being sealed, she only conducts a light operation that involves nipping a small part of the female organ under local anesthesia.
“Traditionally, the Somali do the old Egyptian type of FGM known as firaun (from Pharaonic). It is the worst form of FGM and the female organ is badly mutilated, leaving the birth canal and the urethra almost exposed. “We no longer do that because it has been known to be dangerous and unnecessary.
We now recommend just a symbolic nip to fulfill cultural demands,” said the nurse who revealed August and December are busy FGM months in Eastleigh, Isiolo, Garissa, Wajir, Mandera and other NEP areas. “I do it well and professionally.
It has to be done because many men who have grown up in Kenya and later migrated abroad carry the demands of culture with them, they will not marry a woman who has not undergone FGM.”
The nurse added that her clients from abroad who feel that the alternative offered by her is safe have a way of getting in touch with her and others who offer the minor surgery.
They operate solely on referral from trusted contacts. “After the cut, I put the girl on medication. She would be on her way to recovery very fast and that gives parents a sense of security,” she says.
Some of the girls are admitted like ordinary patients in private hospital wards after the operation from where they recover in about four to five days, she says.
One of the hospitals in Eastleigh, where our team found two girls on their recovery beds, is a well-known facility that even accepts health insurance cards from reputable companies.
Another traditional circumciser, who has taken permanent residence in Eastleigh, says even some of the most educated people in her community still subscribe to traditional dictates.
Countries such as the UK and US offer stringent measures to curb proliferation of FGM within their borders, with a prison sentence of about 14 years for any one found culpable, but the traditional circumciser says she has in the past done FGM in London where families invited her secretly.
But she later decided to insist they travel to Kenya to avoid the risk of being caught. A recent Kenya Demographic and Health Survey (KDHS) report says girls get circumcised at a fee in established medical facilities in defiance of the law, and that those engaged in the practice risk being reprimanded, or even prosecuted.
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