Over 300 girls aged between seven and 12 years on Saturday graduated after a course about the dangers of female genital mutilation (FGM). The girls, drawn from Kisii and Migori counties, graduated at Nyanchwa, Igonga and Elimu Academy grounds after training organised by the Kenya National Commission for Human Rights (KNCHR). They were trained on the disadvantages of female genital mutilation that is still secretly practiced by the Gusii community and openly by the Kuria. Speaking at the graduation ceremony in Nyanchwa, KNCHR activist James Mwenda rubbished the belief that circumcising a girl is the way to have her graduate from childhood to adulthood. “It used to be a widespread vice in Kisii; and now Kuria people are doing it openly without regard to the dangers experienced while undergoing the cut,” said Mwenda. Mary Mogaka, a director with the Kisii branch of the Young Women Christian Association, blamed the continuing of the vice on unscrupulous private medical practitioners who disregard the effects of the process.

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