A case of genital mutilation in Kenya

June 23, 2006

Guest Post by Michael J.W. Stickings

Sometimes it’s hard to know what to say. This horrific story out of Kenya is from the BBC:

Kenyan villagers have been shocked by the death of girl who bled to death after trying to perform female genital mutilation (FGM) on herself.

Pamela Kathambi did the procedure on her own because she was being teased by her friends for not being circumcised in the remote village of Irindi.

Her mother told the BBC that she had refused to allow her 15-year-old to be circumcised last year.

FGM is banned in Kenya, but remains common in some areas.

In some communities it is believed that circumcision will maintain a girl’s honour and is part of a girl’s initiation into womanhood.

What can I say? That I’m grateful to live in a country like Canada? Regardless, this incident, surely not an isolated one, should remind us that providing aid — specifically related to sexual education and women’s health care — to underdeveloped countries should be a priority for the developed West.

In a way it’s a positive story since her mother didn’t let her be ritually circumsized. Stories like those are shocking but they are vestiges of customs that are slowly dying out. Population is the big issue and that is where the West fails most in its aid because of conflicts about the issue at home.

Bushies spin it. “If you get Aids, make lemon aide.” Sarah Silverman

  • God, what a horid story. Am I a bad person for having the first thought after reading this be:
    You live in Canada?

  • Look at the story within the story. It’s not about FGM; it’s not about the parent who said no—it’s about peer pressure. And peer pressure is nothing more than the logical conclusion of a practice whereby society teaches its members that “the group” is more important than the individual. A “groupthink” mentality, clearly, possesses its dark side—a very dark side, indeed….

  • Saw this after just finding a link to this BBC article about breast ironing in Cameroon. The horrors of ignorance and sex are visited upon women in so many societies, in so many ways—not excepting our own. And so often it’s because men are considered to be too undisciplined to control their sexual aggression. The girls are always the ones who suffer, it’s just so pathetic.

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