MORE than 2,500 women from eight Maasai clans in Kajiado yesterday said they are on strike until the government repeals the Female Genital Mutilation Act and allows them to circumcise their daughters.
They told their husbands to support their cause or they will be denied their conjugal rights.
The women were speaking at Enkorika location in Dalalekutuk ward, Kajiado Central district.
They blocked their husbands from attending their meeting.
County commissioner Albert Kobia and journalists were not allowed into the meeting, in which they deliberated on their demands.
“Let them stand against us and they will go dry for a long spell until they change their minds. This is a united fight against what we term injustices visited on the Maasai community by the government,” said one woman.
All the women were armed with sticks and were ready for any confrontation with the police, if they tried to stop them from holding the meeting.
The county AP commander ordered officers to keep off the venue so as to keep peace.
After meeting for close to three hours, the women from Kisonko, Dalalekutuk, Matapato, Ildamat, Kaputiei, Iloodokilani, Purko and Keekonyokie clans of the Kajiado Maasai, told the government to suspend the Act until further notice as they negotiate with the state and their leaders.
Their leader, Esther Shapashina, said it is taboo for a Maasai woman to give birth before undergoing the cut.
She said the government has infringed the rights of the Maasai by introducing laws that go against their traditions.
“We are not against the ban on FGM but the people should be given the right to choose what is right for them. We are not going to force our girls to undergo the cut but we should be allowed to make choices,” Shapashina said.
She said since the law was effected in 2011, the number of unmarried girls in Maasailand have doubled because men are not allowed to marry uncircumcised women.
The government criminalised FGM but a section of the Maasai people have insisted that they will not be cowed by the government into abandoning their traditional rite of passage for girls.
Three chiefs from Dalalekutuk ward, Charles Musara (Enkorika), Joshua Shira (Kikurro) and Joshua Kaaka (Olobelbel) told Kobia that some elders and women in their locations have threatened them for their stand against FGM.
- The Star
The post We want to cut our girls, Maasai women tell government appeared first on Jambonewspot.