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Female Genital Mutilation: From the Life Story of Girls in Remote Villages
in Pokot County, Kenya
Amal K Halder*, Golam Dostogir Harun and Shiuli Das
Freelance Service Provider and Daffodil University, Dhaka, Bangladesh
*Corresponding author: Amal K Halder, Freelance Service Provider and Daffodil University, Dhaka, Tel: +8801712206711; E-mail: amalkrishna.halder@gmail.com
Received date: June 23, 2015, Accepted date: August 28, 2015, Published date: September 03, 2015
Copyright: 2015 © Halder AK, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted
use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Objective: Female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) has highest prevalence in African countries. The objective
of this qualitative study was to describe the situation of FGM/C victims in Pokot County, located in a remote area of
northwest Kenya.
Methods: In September 2009, the study team conducted key informant interviews, visited girls at communities
and a rescue centre and, conducted group discussion with the girls at rescue centre.
Results: FGM/C was common and popular among the Pokot community mainly because the event brings the
social recognition of an adolescent or adult female to become eligible for her marriage. Although the hazardous
FGM/C practices encompassed many health dangers as witnessed by the Pokot community girls/women, the Pokot
community fought to maintain the custom as because it represented prestige and identity, which was their duty and
responsibility to maintain.
Conclusion: FGM/C was still common in Kenyan Pokot communities, although efforts from the development
agencies and government acts kept working against those harmful practices. The Kenyan government's act of
prohibition against FGM/C was not being enforced.
Keywords: Female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C); Pokot;
Kenya
Introduction
e procedure of female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C)
comprises the involvement of partial or total removal of the external
female genitalia [1,2]. ere are some risks associated with FGM/C
including both short term and long term consequences. e short term
consequences are severe pain, shock, haemorrhage (bleeding), tetanus
or sepsis (bacterial infection), urine retention, open sores in the genital
region and injury to nearby genital tissue. e long term consequences
including recurrent bladder and urinary tract infections, cysts,
infertility, an increased risk of childbirth complications and newborn
death [1-5] ere were other consequences as well including death,
life-long physical disability, life-long disability in sexual life, hindering
natural physical movements, absence of erogenous feelings in sexual
intercourse, severe pain and bleeding during and/or immediately aer
sexual intercourse, and cases of maternal death during delivery [1-5].
In many setting where FGM/C is practiced, it is justied because
there is a social consensus that if households or individuals do not
perform FGM/C on their girls/women, they risk being excluded,
criticized, ridiculed, stigmatized or the household would unable to nd
a suitable partner to marriage for their daughters [6,7]. Coyne and
Coyne speak of the ‘identity economics’ perpetuating FGM/C, and
point out the role of older, circumcised females as being key players in
perpetuating FGM/C [6]. Although the government of Kenya has
made this practice illegal with laws passed long ago, the people of
Pokot regularly disobey the laws and continue practicing FGM/C,
sometimes secretly and sometimes openly. As a result, by August 2009
close to 80% of Pokot girls took part in FGM/C in order to become
eligible for marriage in the traditional society. Because of continued
practices of FGM/C, the international community has continued
support to abolish or eradicate the harmful and risky practice [1,7].
One hundred and forty (140) million girls and women are living
with the consequences of FGM/C and most of them reside in 28
African countries [8,9]. A UNICEF study covering 70 countries over a
20-year period revealed that in Somalia, Guinea, Djibouti, Egypt,
Eritrea, Mali, Sierra Leone and Sudan, over 88% of girls and women
were victims of FGM/C and the total number of victims was 125
million [10]. Owing to concern among the international community
about the harmful traditional practice of FGM/C, the situation is
improving [1]. FGM/C in Kenya is common mainly in remote rural
areas. Demographic and Health Surveys conducted on national
samples in Kenya demonstrate a decrease in FGM/C to 27% in 2009
from 32% in 2003 and from 38-40% in 1998 [11]. e prevalence
FGM/C varies by ethnic group in Kenya; high prevalence was found in
the Somali (97%), Kilii (96%), Kuria (96%) and Maasai (93%) tribes,
while low prevalence was found in the Kikuyu, Kamba, Turkana, Luo
and Luhya tribes [8]. West Pokot is a Kenyan county where the Pokot
people live and where FGM/C was found as a common practice (85%)
among girls and women [11]. In accordance with the support from the
international community, human rights organizations continue
campaigning and advocating against FGM/C by educating people
about its negative consequences, which have been recorded through
discussions and observations. Being part of human right promotion
organization, an international humanitarian development organization
for which the senior author was working continued support to the
Halder, et al., J Child Adolesc Behav 2015, 3:5
DOI: 10.4172/2375-4494.1000237
Research Article Open Access
J Child Adolesc Behav, an open access journal
ISSN: 2375-4494
Volume 3 • Issue 5 • 1000237
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ISSN: 2375-4494
Journal of Child & Adolescent
Behavior
people in Pokot community in collaboration with international donor
communities. In fact the mentioned humanitarian development
organization provides supports to the communities through integrated
promotion of interventions in healthcare, livelihood, education and
psychosocial supports to the people in communities. In 2009, the
humanitarian development organization conducted a baseline study
for it’s a newly started program. e baseline study included social
issues related to healthcare, nutrition, livelihood, education for
children and psychosocial support through addressing gender issues.
Although the baseline study was a quantitative study, this particular
qualitative study was part of senior author's special interest, (was not
included into the baseline study design). Data were collected together
with the baseline study and from the same baseline community. e
qualitative study described the situation of girls among the Pokot tribe
in Pokot County of Kenya regarding the traditional harmful practices
FGM/C.
Methods
e Pokot tribe is the dominant ethnic group in West Pokot County
and in Baringo County located in northwest Kenya in the Ri Valley
Province, and in the Pokot District of the eastern Karamoja region in
Uganda [12-14]. e county is situated in Ri Valley, over 500 km
away from the capital city of Nairobi, Kenya. e common economic
activities among the Pokot people are nomadic pastoralism, mining,
and commercial businesses. Because of the remote and mountainous
geographic conditions of the area and high elevation (2000 meters
above sea level) the major challenges to their livelihoods and daily lives
are year round water scarcity and lack of education [12-15]. Health
problems among the Pokot include infectious diseases such as cholera,
malaria, trachoma and visceral leishmaniasis [16-19], malnutrition
[15], high fertility rates [20], and maternal health problems including
obstetric stula [21]. e popularity of traditional healing practices,
and preference for traditional over modern prevention and treatments,
has long been documented [12,13,22].
roughout the year, the Pokot people are totally dependent on
rainwater for drinking, cooking, cleaning and for other livelihood
requirements. In Pokot County the typical rainy season lies between
March and August (six months). During the other six months of the
year, people depend on stored water preserved during the rainy season.
In some years the rainy season ends early, lasting only 4-5 months.
A team of two members leaded by the senior author travelled to
Pokot County, Kenya during September 2009 for six days and gathered
data. An international humanitarian organization based on Pokot, its
local ocials volunteered to assist in visits to dierent locations,
including visiting the girls at shelters or rescue centres/schools (Figure
1) run by the international humanitarian organization. e team chose
Pokot County because FGM/C was common among the people there
[16]. In Pokot, the team visited over 10 villages, spot-checked the
geographic conditions, and interviewed key informants including ve
(5) teachers and three (3) local leaders. e team conducted group
discussions with 31 girls (Figure 1) at the girls rescue centre and also
conducted group discussions with 4 local ocials of Area
Development Program at Pokot of the international humanitarian
organization. e selection of informants was done purposively
considering that the informants had information and agreed to
respond to questions related to FGM/C. e interview followed a
structured checklist that included items about people's general feelings
and opinions about FGM/C, feelings from the girls, perceived
advantages and disadvantages of FGM/C, societal norms inuenced
the girls and their guardian in terms of their beliefs and behavior
regarding FGM/C, association of resources/wealth with FGM/C,
association of societal status with FGM/C, perceived government
opinion and people's knowledge of government rules regarding
FGM/C, as well as any additional comments and recommendations.
Figure 1: Pokot girls at a rescue centre-cum-school, Pokot, Kenya,
2009.
Human subject protection
Although the study was added with the broader baseline study
related to the international humanitarian organization's internal
intervention strategies where the senior author was part of the
organization. However, this particular objective was the senior author's
individual interest outside the organization's baseline study. Since the
study was not funded research protocol hence IRB approval was not
obtained. Before collecting data from the participants, the interviewers
claried study objectives, purpose of data collection, and explained
that there was no individual benet or compensation for participation
and no loss in case of non-participation, and that participation was
completely voluntary. During data collection respondents' individual
consent was checked and ensured that there was no individual harm or
disclosure of respondents' identity.
Results
e community visits and informant interviews revealed that the
road networks and infrastructure of the Pokot community are poor
and as a result transportation between localities and outside the Pokot
tribal regions was dicult and time consuming. e majority of the
people in remote Pokot localities did not have much access to
education regarding to traditional harmful practices. Men were
dominant in household decision-making, with women assigned
responsibility for entertaining their husbands, child care and domestic
duties. Traditionally, the Pokot community is a polygamous culture
where early marriages to girls, having multiple wives, and fathering
large numbers of children were indicators that brought social dignity
to men. e other indicators of social dignity for men were, owning a
larger number of cows and bualoes compared to others.
As reported by the respondents during the consultations that
FGM/C among adolescent girls was a type of conventional festival at
Citation: Das S, Harun GD, Halder Ak (2015) Female Genital Mutilation: From the Life Story of Girls in Remote Villages in Pokot County, Kenya.
J Child Adolesc Behav 3: 237. doi:10.4172/2375-4494.1000237
Page 2 of 4
J Child Adolesc Behav, an open access journal
ISSN: 2375-4494
Volume 3 • Issue 5 • 1000237
Pokot households. During the festival of FGM/C, the household of the
girl invites local elites, neighbours, relatives, friends, and family well-
wishers. e girl's parents arrange food and drinks, alcohol and local
brews, and traditional dancing along with varieties of local recreational
activities which last throughout the night.
e FGM/C became the most attractive and popular event among
all the events in Pokot community because it brings the social
recognition of an adolescent girl or adult female to become eligible for
her marriage. While discussing with local leaders the eld team was
told that in order to protect and promote the traditional culture, the
male-dominated traditional society was continuously taking part and
standing against the banning of FGM/C system. e key informant
participants also reported that signicance of FGM/C for status and
identity in the community was inculcated in Pokot girls by the family
members and by the people in neighbouring community and relatives
since early childhood. Specically, the girls are oriented like this --"As
long as FGM ceremony is not done and celebrated, irrespective of age
factor, the girl would never been recognized or designated as an adult
enough to be married. Alternatively, no Pokot man would show
interest to marry a girl unless her FGM/C ceremony has been done."
e consultation meeting with by the respondents also found that
the incidences of early/child marriage and/or forced marriage of
female children or girls with elderly men remained a common practice
across Pokot community. ere have been number of case stories like
this - "father of a girl received animals (cow/bualo/goat) from an old
man of age 60 years or more who had ample animals and resources
with the condition that the girl would be married to him, the old man.
Indeed the father of the girl started feeding his family with the
revenues generated by selling those animals received from the old man.
Besides this, the father managed FGM/C expenses as well with the
revenues of selling animals.
e old man (ancé) already had multiple wives and a good number
of children at his home where some of those children were older than
even the girl who the old man intended to marry. All of a sudden, two
months aer the girl's FGM/C, the old man rushed into the girl's house
with his associates and took the girl o to his home against her will,
however the girl's parents consented for her to be taken o. en the
old man started enjoying the girl as his wife."
e other example of a story of a FGM/C victim was - "father of a
girl child brought animals from an old man. e agreement was that
immediately aer the FGM/C of his daughter, she would be handed
over to him as his wife. By noticing the situation, the girl ran away
from the home and took shelter at one of her relatives' house. Later on,
aer two days of staying at her relative's house, the mother of the girl
came in to bring her back home. With the help of the relative, the
mother tied up the girl on the back of a donkey to take her back home.
On the way home, a human rights agency rescued her and sheltered
her at a rescue centre."
As one respondent reported, "it has been a customary that if an
elderly man who already has multiple wives, is ready to marry another
girl, who is in fact a teenager, the value of the dowry (livestock) to the
father of the teenage girl increases up to double or triple times
compared to an ordinary situation of dowry to the father of a girl who
gets marry in the society". As reported by the respondents, that there
have even been instances where fathers of girls appointed brokers for
their teenage girls in search of an old men who have ample resources
along with multiple wives, and wanted to marry again to a teenage girl
in exchange for cows and/or bualos. e only objective of these
fathers was getting more and more animals in exchange of his
daughter.
e respondents also reported that in order to discourage FGM/C,
the human rights organizations in collaboration with the government
hold occasional mass gatherings, weekly gatherings/ meetings through
conducting sessions, changes in school curriculum that incorporate
the issues of harmful practices of FGM/C, and they also arrange
courtyard sessions at household in communities. rough these
activities, they educate people about harmful FGM/C practices. e
human rights organizations and NGOs have also established rescue
centres for the FGM/C victims and are providing support including
health treatment, schooling, and arrangement of marriages.
Discussion
In the Pokot communities where this consultation was conducted,
societal recognition to become an eligible for her marriage of a girl/
female was a strong motivator for carrying out FGM/C. In exchange
for societal recognition, girls/females were willing to subject
themselves to such a risky custom of FGM/C by accepting the situation
irrespective of the result of mental and physical pressure. Even though,
the other immediate consequences to health were known to them up to
some level.
As we understand through this investigation that the traditional
custom of FGM/C never was associated with health benets for the
girls/women, the benets accrued to the invited guests and relatives
attending the ceremony. Although the hazardous FGM/C practices
encompass many health dangers as were witnessed by the Pokot
community people and elsewhere, the tradition-respecting Pokot
community still seeks to retain these practices/ ey see them as
emblematic of their culture, and symbols of prestige and identity;
therefore, propagating these practices and passing them down to future
generations is their duty and responsibility [6,8]. Hence, they are
responsible for protecting and promoting the Pokot identity.
Although FGM/C is common across some other dierent ethnic
groups in Kenya, the ndings of this study were limited to the specic
Pokot community. erefore, the ndings may not generalizable to the
entire Kenyan population.
Conclusions
FGM/C was still common in Pokot Communities in Kenya. In order
to abolish the harmful FGM/C practices, UN agencies implemented
government-level advocacy initiatives and collaborative programmes
with the Kenyan government and development organizations in Kenya
[7]. ese indicated that assistance through joint involvement of
international communities along with government could be more
eective in implementation of Kenyan FGM/C act.
Finally, the study concluded that the girls and women did not
support FGM/C. Although the Kenyan government has strong laws
prohibiting FGM/C, enforcement of such laws was taking time [2,8].
e study recommended that advocacy initiatives and integrated
support from government, development agencies and international
community to eliminate FGM/C to be continued.
Authors' contributions
SD initiated preparing the manuscript and leaded the manuscript;
PJW reviewed critically and provided advisory support in arranging
Citation: Das S, Harun GD, Halder Ak (2015) Female Genital Mutilation: From the Life Story of Girls in Remote Villages in Pokot County, Kenya.
J Child Adolesc Behav 3: 237. doi:10.4172/2375-4494.1000237
Page 3 of 4
J Child Adolesc Behav, an open access journal
ISSN: 2375-4494
Volume 3 • Issue 5 • 1000237
the write up; MR reviewed and provided feedback; GDH reviewed and
provided feedback; FAN reviewed and provided feedback; AKH was
the supervisor of the study, initiated the study design, collected data
and reviewed the write up. All authors read and approved the nal
manuscript.
Acknowledgements
e study was a part of experiences gathered independently by the
authors. In gathering information, the team received assistance from
International humanitarian organization such as facilitation of data
collection activities. e authors are very thankful to the humanitarian
organization and community participants of the Pokot community.
e authors also acknowledge Mr. Stephen Berno and Ms. Yvonne
Agengo, Kenyan colleagues, formerly worked for the same
humanitarian organization for their thoughtful review and proof
checking in the background and other characteristics in the
introduction and method sections. We also acknowledge Ms. Meghan
Scott (icddr,b scientic writing consultant) for her thoughtful review,
and comments on write up of this manuscript.
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Citation: Das S, Harun GD, Halder Ak (2015) Female Genital Mutilation: From the Life Story of Girls in Remote Villages in Pokot County, Kenya.
J Child Adolesc Behav 3: 237. doi:10.4172/2375-4494.1000237
Page 4 of 4
J Child Adolesc Behav, an open access journal
ISSN: 2375-4494
Volume 3 • Issue 5 • 1000237
