The Principal Secretary-State Department Gender and Affirmative Action Anne Wang’ombe has said that the fight against retrogression vices like Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and Gender Based Violence (GBV) should be fought to make society an aggression free entity.
Wang’ombe who spoke on Monday during an FGM and GBV forum that brought various Community Based Organisation (CBOs) and World Vision at Tagare grounds -Mabera Sub County said that government has been encouraging communities to stop retrogressive vices.
She noted that nothing could be achieved through violence and ungodly cultures and traditions whose time has passed, noting that the world has evolved and no one should be left behind simply because they are hanging on retrogressive cultures that keep infringing on the rights of Kenyan children.
She elaborated on the need to create more awareness at the community level as well as engaging more with developmental partners to promote gender equality in our society.
The official also explained that FGM and GBV could be eradicated through investing in programmes that promote access to education for the girl child, economically empowering women and youths and strengthening programmes that propagate gender inclusion and human rights.
“We want to promote and advocate for a free society that is safe, a society where every person is respected regardless of their gender or position,” said Wang’ombe.
The PS said that the State Department of Gender and Affirmative Action would continue to partner with developmental partners like World Vision to address issues of FGM and GBV to safeguard the rights and freedom of girls and women.
Wang’ombe also disclosed that they would continue to work with partners to identify gaps and challenges in eradicating negative vices to ensure they are well-tailored to effectively achieve the set goals.
“Gatekeepers in society are very important and incorporating them in our programmes through mutual respect, meaningful engagement and persuasion can help us achieve our goals of eradicating negative vices within our society,” said Wang’ombe.
On the issue of cross-border FGM, the PS said that the East African community has been at the forefront of addressing the matter to safeguard the safety and rights of women across the region.
She however said that there was a need for more advanced advocacy, community sensitisation and interventions to enlighten the community that is still practicing FGM.
The PS noted that the government has put in place economic interventions like the Women Enterprise Funds, and National Government Affirmative Action Funds (NGAAF), among others to empower women to engage in meaningful enterprises with the aim of reducing poverty and other negative vices like FGM and GBV.
Principal Secretary for Social Protection and Senior Citizen Joseph Motari said that it was important to create tangible interventions that could counter the negative effects of retrogressive cultures like FGM, early marriage and GBV.
Motari affirmed that through social economic interventions from both levels of government and developmental partners, the Kuria community could be empowered to generate wealth and embrace positive cultures for the sake of future generations.
However, the National Director of World Vision Kenya Gilbert Kamanga stressed that they would continue to create workable and tangible interventions to curb the three effects of; FGM, early marriages and teenage pregnancies that have a direct effect on the life of a child, especially the girl.
Kamanga elaborated that together with other partners, they would continue to lay out different mechanisms to address the three effects to make the society a better place to live in, work and grow the developmental agenda of the country.
He noted that through the World Vision Programme dubbed “Kenya Big Dream” they have laid out economic interventions to empower various communities across the country to eliminate FGM, teenage pregnancy and early marriage.
Kamanga however disclosed that it’s through consistency and mindset change that the fight against bad and retrogressive cultures could be won.
He said that as an organisation, they would continue to learn from challenges, expand their intentions and provide workable solutions to curb the negative vices for the betterment of the affected societies.
In September this year, World Vision launched an initiative in the Kuria region to distribute dairy goats to local households.
The Big Dream Programme initiative has provided 504 dairy goats to 504 families in Kuria to enhance their livelihoods by eradicating poverty and FGM.
Meanwhile, Migori Member of Parliament Fatuma Mohammed advised guardians from the Kuria community who were still handing on the outdated FGM menace to understand that what they were doing to their girls was inhumane, a crime and ungodly.
Fatuma urged the community to embrace acceptable cultures to preserve their heritage and empower the girl child through education for the benefits of community development.
According to the Migori County Executive Committee Member for Agriculture Lucas Mosenda who represented the county government, he noted that the 2019 Sexual Gender Based Violence (SGBV) policy would soon be presented to the County Assembly to make it a bill.
Mosenda acknowledged that the bill would assist the county in addressing challenges of GBV, teenage pregnancies, early marriage, and child labour that continued to affect the county residents, especially in the sugar belt and gold mining sub-counties within the county.
By Geoffrey Makokha
