The Anti-FGM Board chairperson Linah Jebii Kilimo has said the female genital mutilation prevalence rate has dropped from 27 per cent to 20 per cent, a sign that Kenya is winning the war on the outdated practice.
According to the Star, Kilimo attributed the decline to anti-FGM campaigns meant to sensitise local communities on the need to shun practice.
The former Marakwet East MP said the educative forums aim to encourage residents to educate their girls instead of letting them undergo the ‘cut’.
“The girls are better off educated than married off,” Kilimo said as quoted by the Star.
Kilimo spoke in Bomet County during a training for 60 women on how to fight FGM, added that girls who have completed their KCPE are the most vulnerable.
She said the board has launched efforts to discourage parents from making them undergo FGM, since most of them are married off after undergoing the traditional practice..
She was accompanied by Bomet Governor Isaac Ruto’s wife, Esther who said they have mapped out hotspots in the county where FGM is common and will hold educative forums in the areas.
FGM is also common in Gusii region.