FGM eradication.

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FGM eradication.

Female genital mutilation (FGM) is a cultural practice that has been associated with immediate and long-term health and severe complications and in some events death. FGM also disempowers women and girls and it is evident that the practice reaps females of their dignity. Hence, many organizations in Africa have come together and formulated policies aimed at eradicating the practice. Ending FGM has been for the past years at the heart of most organization, it is has been woven to the campaigns on the promotion of health and human rights as well as the empowerment of women and girls. Kenya as a country has not been left behind in the eradication of the practice. Stakeholders in the country have come together and formulated a strategic framework that stipulates the measures to be taken and clearly defines the roles to be played by the responsible bodies so as to end the practice.

Organizations both international and national have come together and formulated policies that condemn the practice and facilitated the development of guidelines and subsequent plan of actions that will speed up the elimination of the very harmful practice. The activities around eradication of FM among the Maasai community include the introduction of an alternative rite of passage, to replace the mutilation that was being practiced. The rite of passage introduced by the agency enables girls to have a coming of age ceremony without their bodies being mutilated. In such functions girls are empowered by being taught of their role as powerful women as well as the importance of formal education as well as reproductive health. Another strategy implemented include the promotion of anti-FGM legislation. FGM has led to the formulation of several policies and others have been adopted into law that protect the lives of young girls who society force them to undergo the cut. The other strategies employed include; conducting a series of public education forums where experts try to break down the dangers of the cultural practice to the community, advocacy has been utilized as a strategy and the media has played a critical role in the campaigns. The media has been used as a tool that warns parents and the society at large of the dangers they get their young daughters in.

The Maasai is a very united community and have a bond that cannot be separated, they live by their own rules and they have escaped the wave of modernization hence making the eradication of FGM an uphill task.