Women demonstrating how FGM is carried out. Leaders have intensified the anti-FGM campaign in Garissa. (The Star)
The Garissa County government, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), clerics, scholars and Nyumba Kumi initiative have intensified campaigns against Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) as the holiday seasons kicks off. According to a local daily, many parents in the county are plotting to undertake the process despite campaigns against the vice. It has been revealed that most of the parents have been organizing for their children to undergo the cut in secrecy as per their cultural beliefs and practices. The different groups have intensified the anti-FGM campaign in the last two weeks in a bid to protect the girl-child from being misused. The campaigners have been camping across the county where they have been educating the parents on the legal and health implications of the practice. Studies show that the Somali community has the highest number of women who have undergone the process in the entire world with close to 95 percent of girls aged between4 and 11 being taken under the knife for the cut. Two circumcisers handed over their tools of the trade to the assistant chief Hubba Abdullahi during the campaigns in Bula Mzuri sublocation after they were educated in the health and legal issues related to the practice in question.