Sameness through social transformation

145

146

some family members and the local church, he annulled the marriage and offered to take the girl to school at his own cost. In some cases, it is the ministry of education that takes the initiative. And we are not just talking about Maasailand. Just to pick recent examples; in Kwale district 3 girls were rescued from forced marriages and transferred into a boarding school.²⁰⁴All the three had been „married‟ to men aged 70 and above. A man who married off one of the girls was jailed for 8 years. Elsewhere, the daughter of a chief, aged 15, fled their rural home after her father attempted to force her to undergo female circumcision. The DC ordered the arrest of the chief.²⁰⁵ This was a shot on the foot of the state since it is these administrators who were expected to eradicate the practice. In another instance in Marakwet, 17 girls had to flee their homes and take refuge in a human rights centre after they were forced to undergo the „real circumcision‟ after an alternative „mock‟ rite,²⁰⁶ organised by NGOs to replace female circumcision had been successfully concluded.²⁰⁷ In Maasailand, there was a joint Ministry of Health/Gtz project offering this „alternative rite‟ of passage to girls. The campaign was gaining momentum during my study.

Socially, female circumcision impacts on school attendance, leads to early marriages and is a barrier to cross-ethnic marriages. A Maasai teacher, who went through the rite and has no regrets, admits however that as a practice that basically prepares girls for Maasai suitors, educated women are disadvantaged since, after getting the chance to meet men from other ethnic groups while in high school or college, it dawns on them that many of these men are not keen on circumcised women. She notes: “Anytime a Kamba man is interested in me, they always ask whether I am circumcised.²⁰⁸ When I tell them that I am, most of them lose interest immediately.” (Vivian , Simba, 13/06/2000).

Generally, abandonment of female circumcision and „forced marriages‟ was seen as one way of creating a sense of sameness between the Kamba and the Maasai; but the practice is riddled

204 The Daily Nation, Wednesday, April 25, 2001. The girls were taken to Waa Boarding Primary School for

„protection‟.

205 See The Daily Nation, Friday, December 7, 2001.

206 Women lobby groups, bilateral organisations and international NGOs (e.g. Plan International) came up with alternative rites of passage for girls. Among the Pokot for instance, some 153 girls aged between 10 and 18 years completed this rite at Cheparreiria Catholic church in West Pokot in 2001 (see The Daily Nation, Friday,

December 21, 2001). Through lectures given by health experts and educationists, the girls are sensitised on contemporary reproductive health concerns (e.g. HIV/Aids) and challenges of childhood. While this alternative rite takes a week, the „traditional‟ practice takes about two weeks and the initiates are taken to a secluded dwelling deep inside a forest. The practice involves the use of „crude‟ knives and unsterilised tools, and with no use of anaesthesia, it is a very painful exercise. It is argued that without the pain, the exercise would lose some of its significance.

207 The Daily Nation, April 16, 2002.

208 The so-called female genital mutilation or clitoridectomy is called emuratare ontoyie among the Maasai which basically means the circumcision of girls. The practice, even from the perception of two school teachers who had gone through it, did not appear to be despised or labelled with the negative connotations often associated with it by among others, development organisations, researchers and the media.

147

with heaps of controversy. Vivian says that it would be difficult to root out the practice since, contrary to suggestions that men perpetuate it, she blames the women: “They organise it, it is not men, sometimes, I feel like they are saying „we went through it, it might not be good but you must feel what we felt‟...”. Moreover, the monetarisation of the exercise has compounded the problem. The „old‟ women who carry out this exercise were being paid an average of Ksh 1,000 (EUR 15) per girl. What used to be „tokens of appreciation‟ had been turned into means of income and therefore a transformation of social responsibility. Keen to protect their economic interests, these women, who are also influential, are opposed to the eradication of the practice.

There are other inconsistencies. As many girls increasingly run away from home or seek refuge among sympathetic relatives to escape circumcision or forced marriage, others yearn for it. In West Pokot, for instance, a schoolgirl threatened to take her own life after her parents ruled out her participation in the circumcision.²⁰⁹ While in ordinary circumstances it is the parents who find themselves on the other side of the law, this time round, it was the little girl who was arrested by the police. In Kisii, nearly all political leaders support the practice. A local MP and former university lecturer, Mr Jimmy Angwenyi claimed that female circumcision “is good and should not be stopped.” He warned that nobody or no amount of intimidation would stop the Kisii from pursuing their “cultural heritage.” As to how damaging the practice was, he said “amongst the Abagusii (Kisii) community, the idea of female genital mutilation (FGM) does not exist as girls simply go for a minor cut of the clitoris.”²¹⁰ In Marakwet, a women‟s meeting was disrupted on suspicion that it was opposed to female circumcision. A group of Marakwet men and women stormed the venue, Chugor Primary School, and pelted the participants with stones accusing them of “interfering with our tradition”.²¹¹

The state has, previously in principle, and now by law, prohibited female circumcision. In December 2001, „forced‟ early marriages and circumcision of girls below 18 years, were both outlawed and criminalised. The laws, contained in the Children‟s Bill passed by parliament, says that anyone who commits these offences will be liable to a minimum of one year jail sentence or a Ksh 50,000 (EUR 650) fine or both. Shortly afterwards, President Moi banned the practice ahead of assenting the bill into law.²¹² In 1982, he had condemned the practice threatening those circumcising girls, at least in his home district of Baringo with dire

209 The Daily Nation, Thursday, December 20, 2001.

210 The Daily Nation, Tuesday, December 4, 2001.

211 Ibid.

212 The Daily Nation, Thursday, December 13, 2001.

148

consequences. The question is: Did the practice stop after its criminalisation? Enacting laws and change of practices can be two different things. Enactment of a similar law in Ghana is said to have failed to root out the practice.²¹³ In the Kenyan case, immediately after the Bill became law, cases were reported in Kisii where the practice had been „medicalised‟. Under the guise of normal hospital visit, female nurses would be contracted for the exercise, charging about Ksh 400 (EUR 5) per girl.

All this means that for many girls, the ritual is not an option, for those who somehow escape it have also to contend with the harassment their peers can mete out to them. While the practice has been condemned widely, there is no indication that there shall be adherence to the law.

The reason why groups like the Maasai and Kisii resist even legislation banning the practice is that it is a deeply embedded practice, attached with a lot of symbolism and meaning. Banton (1983: 100) notes that when a group continues to maintain certain forms of behaviour, it is because the members are motivated to maintain them and that if they change, it is because individual motivations have changed. According to the Kenya Demographic Health Survey (1998) about 55% of Kenyan groups practice female circumcision. Among the Kisii, about 97% of girls and women aged between 15 and 49 have undergone the practice while among the Maasai, it was 89%, while the Kenyan average prevalence was 37.6%.

Teachers who taught in schools with Kamba and Maasai pupils, noted that girls and boys hurl insults at one another regarding female circumcision. This ridicule, rather than pressure from parents for the Maasai girls to get married, was seen as one reason why some Maasai girls dropped out of school after the rite. Those who avoid or „escape‟ the rite, are said to win praise from non-Maasai girls, and boys too. Many Maasai girls are beginning to defy their parents, although there are arrangements now in which the rite is combined with schooling by carrying it out during school holidays. And with the support of non-Maasai (and sometimes Maasai) teachers, education officials and local administrators, more and more Maasai girls are skipping this rite. With the Maasai having the first woman chief in 2002, it does not seem that it will take “one hundred years” before the Maasai have an elected woman parliamentarian, as a former MP for Kibwezi (Kamba) retorted in a gathering called to reconcile the Kamba and the Maasai in 1995.

213 The Daily Nation, Wednesday, December 12, 2001.

149