Thousands of girls have been subjected to female genital mutilation during a month long “cutting season” in west Kenya, activists have warned, amid fears the Covid lockdown has triggered a dramatic surge in new incidents.
Every day for almost four weeks roughly 100 girls have been pushed to undergo FGM - a dangerous non-medical practice where a girl's genitals are cut - in Kuria, a district on the Tanzanian border some 50 miles from Lake Victoria.
Girls as young as nine are dressed in patterned fabrics, tinsel and balloons and paraded through the streets, surrounded by a throng of dancing adults and children. Many men carry machetes to deter interventions.
“These parades are very loud, with music and dancing, but they are also very hostile,” says Natalie Robi Tingo, founder of Msichana Empowerment Kuria, an organisation working to end FGM. She estimates that around 2,800 girls have been cut over the last three and a half weeks.
“To begin with families were concealing the practice, but by the second and third week girls were being paraded openly on the streets as there had been no repercussions,” she adds. “I became an activist nine years ago and I have never seen anything like this - both in scale and visibility. It's heartbreaking.”
Kenya has been held as a “beacon of hope” amid efforts to eradicate cutting across the globe. The government made FGM illegal 10 years ago, while the President has committed to eradicate cutting by 2022.
But Ms Robi Tingo says the practice was pushed underground in some hotspots - including Kuria, West Pokot (in northwest Kenya) and Loita (south of Nairobi). The coronavirus pandemic has provided cover for FGM to resurface on a huge scale.
“School closures mean children are at home all day, so parents have an opportunity to cut girls without worrying that it will be noticed,” Ms Robi Tingo says. “Normally cutting takes place during the school holidays in November and December, but this year we've seen it happen in April too - and now.”
Instability has also contributed to the surge. Some community elders have reportedly blamed Covid-19 on a failure to uphold traditions, including FGM, that are believed to appease the gods, while families in dire economic straits are cutting their daughters to gain a higher “bride price”.
Female genital mutilation | The facts
Female genital mutilation (FGM) includes procedures that intentionally alter or cause injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons
The procedure has no health benefits for girls and women and the United Nations recognises the practice as "a violation of the human rights, the health and the integrity of girls and women".
It can cause severe bleeding and problems urinating, and later cysts, infections, as well as complications in childbirth and increased risk of newborn deaths
More than 200 million girls and women alive today have been cut in 30 countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia where FGM is concentrated
FGM is mostly carried out on young girls between infancy and age 15
The practice is recognised internationally as a violation of the human rights of girls and women
FGM is outlawed in half of the 30 countries where it is most prevalent yet there have been few prosecution
Delays in anti-FGM programmes due to the coronavirus pandemic means that two million girls who would otherwise be safe from the practice could be at risk over the next decade, according to the UNFPA, the United Nation's reproductive health agency.
Source: World Health Organization
“At a community level FGM is about financial incentives and gains,” says Nimco Ali, chief executive of The Five Foundation, The Global Partnership To End FGM. “When a young girl is cut it is not to protect against rape, as some claim, but to protect an asset - her virginity - so you can sell her at a higher price.”
FGM is also lucrative for those behind the practice. Cutters are paid around 1,000 Kenyan shillings, about £7, for every procedure they perform and in some areas community elders get a percentage of this cash.
“So you can imagine right now when well over 2,000 girls have been cut, that means more than two million Kenyan shillings (around £14,000) has been collected,” says Ms Robi Tingo. “Many girls also receive small change or gifts at these parades, so there's some encouragement there too.”
Providing economic opportunities is central to ending the practice, lifting communities out of poverty and changing minds about the value of women, adds Ms Ali.
“We have to give women in Africa access to economic empowerment, education and sanitation to counter this, because right now they're being treated as a burden,” she says. “There's this idea they're only value is in being mutilated and sold into marriage. I'm not sure why this isn't shaking us to our core.”
Ms Ali - who was appointed by the UK government as an independent adviser on tackling violence against women earlier this month - adds that the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, should apply more pressure on Kenya to maintain vigilance around FGM, even as the pandemic draws attention and resources.
“Kenya is a commonwealth country and the UK is respected in Kenya,” she says. “We have a responsibility to help. I think we can offer a lifeline to these girls.”
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