Kenya bans girls’ genital mutilation

Los Angeles Times

NAIROBI, Kenya — Kenyan women this week won a 20-year-battle to outlaw forced genital excision of young girls, but doubts remain whether the government vigorously will enforce the ban.

Even as President Daniel Arap Moi promised to sign a law criminalizing the practice, known widely as female genital mutilation, many parents and local leaders defied him by performing the operation on their daughters.

"The coming months will tell whether the government is determined to educate people about this backward practice and prosecute those who break the law," said Beth Mugo, an opposition parliamentarian who fought for the law.

The new law makes it a crime to conduct the operation on girls under 17. Parents and medical providers can receive a minimum of 12 months in prison and a fine of about $630, nearly twice the average annual wage in Kenya.

The practice is rampant in Kenya and across much of Africa, especially in rural areas. Many ethnic groups regard it as a rite of passage from childhood to womanhood and argue that it stifles promiscuity by reducing a woman’s sexual pleasure.

Studies have shown that nearly 40 percent of Kenyan women between 15 and 49 have undergone the operation, in which all or part of the clitoris is removed. In this East African nation, health officials say genital excision routinely is performed on girls as young as 6.

Opponents say the practice carries deadly risks, including infection, death during childbirth and the spread of HIV, because the same unsanitary knives are used in multiple operations.

Only a handful of countries in Africa have passed laws outlawing the practice. Five years ago, Kenya’s male-dominated legislature bowed to pressure from leaders of ethnic groups and voted down a bill to ban it. But this year, the same prohibitions were inserted into a bill offering broad legal protections to Kenyan children.

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