Three women from Kaplamai village in Keiyo North Sub County are undergoing treatment at Iten county referral hospital after they underwent Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).
The women, aged 28, 30 and 32 years, allegedly bled excessively after the cut and would be charged with undergoing the outlawed practice once they are discharged from the hospital.
Confirming the incident, area OCPD Mwenda Meme said one of them was a mother to a two months baby adding that police are holding a 70 year old woman suspected to have performed the rite on the trio.
This comes even as both the county and national government continue to lay strategies to curb the vice which is prevalent in the county especially in December.
In a meeting at an Iten hotel recently,County Gender Director Marine Kibet said apart from young girls, married women were being mutilated as they fear ridicule from the community.
The director said according to the community’s culture, an uncircumcised woman is not allowed to participate in her son’s circumcision ceremony.
“For poor women with no source of income, it becomes quite hard to defy this outlawed rite,” she said.
The meeting was told that despite spirited efforts by the government to fight the vice, hundreds of girls have been lined up to be mutilated in the county in December.
The rite, the meeting was told, is sanctioned by elders who study the solar system and other cultural events before they allow it to continue.
The meeting recommended a safe house where girls running away from FGM could find refuge with participants saying the practice led to early marriage affecting girls’ education and their future.
The county police commander Kenneth Kimani called for a change of focus in the war against FGM by focusing more on men who were the major decision makers in the family and the larger society.
By Alice Wanjiru
