The Gusii community has been challenged to replace the outlawed female genital mutilation with education to ensure girls and women to compete favourably with their male counterparts.
A leading artist and soapstone sculptor Prof Elkanah Ong'esa said outdated cultural practices which deprive girls and women their rights to empowerment, will make the community lose out on gainful socio-economic development achievements being experienced by other communities across the country whose girls and women are empowered through education and training.
Speaking to this writer in Kisii town on Tuesday, Ong'esa said FGM was an outdated cultural practice whose significance to girls had outlived its usefulness.
Ong'esa who hails from Gucha South sub-county regretted that instead of empowering girls through education, some conservative traditionalists still believe in retrogressive cultural practices whose importance to society cannot be accounted for.
"I am reminding the Gusii community that times have changed and there is urgent need for them to change and shun their retrogressive cultural practices which hamper socio-economic development, particularly FGM which denies girls the right to enjoy their sexual and reproductive health rights, subjecting them to abuse of their human rights," stated Ong'esa.