In the words of Jomo Kenyatta,15 “the custom of clitoridectomy of girls . . . has been strongly attacked by a number of influential European agencies—missionary, sentimental pro-African, Government, educational and medical authorities” (1965, 125). Kenyatta describes the 1929 attempts by the Church of Scotland Mission to break down the custom among Gikuyu—attempts that led to the issuance of an order demanding that all followers and those who wanted their children to attend schools pledge not to adhere to or support this custom, and not let their children undergo the initiation rite. This order led to a great controversy between the missionaries and the Gikuyu, and to the establishment of schools free from missionary influence, both in educational and religious matters.
The following year, the question of whether the custom should be outlawed was raised in the House of Commons in England. A committee appointed to investigate concluded that the best way to tackle it was through education, not by force of an enactment, leaving the people concerned free to choose what custom was best suited to their condition (Kenyatta 1965, 126). Kenyatta’s voice was one of the few African voices heard within the controversy at the policy-, strategy-, and decision-making level (Murray 1974, 285ff). In 1931, at a conference on African children held in Geneva under the auspices of the Save the Children Fund, several European delegates urged that the time was ripe for the “barbarous custom” to be stopped, and, that like all other “heathen” customs, it should be abolished at once by law. It was seen as the duty of the conference, for the sake of the African children, to call on the governments under which customs of this nature were practiced to pass laws making it a criminal offence for anyone to practice clitoridectomy (Kenyatta 1965, 126-27).
The “female circumcision controversy” of 1928–31 was not the only era during which genital cutting was banned in various parts of the colony (Thomas 2003, 82). In fact, many of the issues at the forefront of the debates at the beginning of the twentieth century are also at the forefront of debates at the beginning of the twenty-first century.16 In the 1920s, a key issue was the struggle for influence between the administration and the missionaries. Each had its own agenda and priorities. For the missionaries, the problem was how to control the relationship between parents (the heathens) and their children (the converts). The administrators grappled with whether to pass laws or achieve change through education. Further, clitoridectomy became a potent realm of state intervention in the 1930s, because various Africans and Europeans viewed it as a basis for broader political concerns. While Africans understood it as sustaining two pillars of political order—gendered personhood and generational authority—Europeans claimed that it threatened “tribal” and imperial health, perpetuated the subjugation of African women, and confounded colonial rule (Thomas 1998, 137).
Another important moment in the circumcision controversy took place in 1956. Thomas (2003, 81) demonstrates that Meru women and girls responded energetically in support of circumcision following the Meru African District Council ban that year, reflecting the continued importance of female initiation for remaking girls into women and transforming adult women into figures of authority within the community (Thomas 1996, 346). As she documents, the practice increased in Meru after the ban, and girls went to the bush to circumcise each other (347).
The Kenyan government began its involvement in the controversy in 1982, following the deaths of fourteen girls as a result of genital cutting. President Moi issued a statement condemning the practice and ordered that murder charges be brought against practitioners who carried out genital cuttings that resulted in death. This order was followed by another, forbidding medical personnel to carry out the operation without the specific permission of the office of the Director of Medical Services. In 1989, he again called for an end to the practice, and, six months later, an official ban was announced (Rahman and Toubia 2000, 177). A motion to make female circumcision illegal in Kenya was defeated in parliament in 1996 (Ntarangwi 2005; Rahman and Toubia 2000, 176), but the practice was made illegal by governmental decree in 1999 (Oboler 2001, 312). The National Plan of Action for the Elimination of Female Genital Mutilation in Kenya emphasized education and outreach over criminal prosecution (Ministry of Health 1999; Rahman and Toubia 2000, 177). Yet, two years later, Parliament recognized that education alone was not enough and included prosecution under the Children Act of 2001 prohibiting anyone from carrying out FGM on a female under eighteen years of age (United Nations 2002; Mwaura 2004). The passage of a law once again proved ineffective in stopping the practice as the gap between law and the social system still needed to be bridged. For that to happen, as Mwaura contends, the communities in which female genital cutting was practiced needed to be involved in implementing the law.
Throughout the 1990s, opponents of FGM launched numerous campaigns in Kenya to end the practice. The opposition had been gathering steam since the early 1990s. Kenyan government, international development agencies, the United Nations, international and national women’s organizations, and professional associations all developed policies condemning the practice of FGM. This condemnation was articulated most forcefully at the International Conference on Population and Development (Cairo, 1994) and the Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing, 1995), where FGM was labeled a harmful traditional practice affecting women and targeted for elimination (Kenya Ministry of Health 1999, 7). But significant awareness, interest, and commitment to fight FGM in all its forms did not translate into tangible or effective projects at the community level.
By the end of the 1990s, several international development agencies were increasing support and vocalizing their stand on “this sensitive issue,” according to the authors of the National Plan of Action for the Elimination of Female Genital Mutilation in Kenya (Ministry of Health, 1999, 7). They argued that “with these types of movements, continued and future FGM programs in Kenya can succeed using financial and technical support and an approach that empowers the local communities, especially the affected Kenyan women and girls, to take a stand against FGM” (7). Kenya’s campaign against FGM was centered in the adoption/ratification of various plans of action viewing FGM as a violation of human rights against women and girls and a threat to women’s reproductive health (9–11). The action plan spelled out objectives to reduce the proportion of girls and women who undergo any type of FGM; to increase the proportion of communities supporting the elimination of FGM through positive changes in attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, and practices; to increase the number of health-care facilities that provide care, counseling, and support to girls and women with physical and psychological problems associated with FGM; and to increase the technical and advocacy capacity of organizations and communities involved in FGM elimination programs (12). This plan was to be implemented in collaboration with partners.
At the end of 2001, Kenya passed the Children Act which made FGM illegal for girls under the age of eighteen. This included potential penalties under Kenyan law for anyone subjecting a child to FGM, including one year’s imprisonment and a fine of up to KShs. 50,000. Few cases of successful legal action against perpetrators of FGM have been reported, and the law has come under widespread criticism for being ineffective and poorly implemented, and for failing to curb FGM (Oloo, Wanjiru, and Newell-Jones 2011, 9).
In the first decade of the new millennium, many nongovernmental and community-based organizations actively participated in the effort to eliminate FGM. For example, No Peace without Justice—an NGO campaigning for the advancement of human rights, democracy, the rule of law, and international justice—reported in early 2003 that five NGOs had formed a joint network, an anti-FGM front in Rift Valley, to “crusad[e] against female genital mutilation . . . to boost the war against the rite in the region” (Standard 2003). The network included World Vision, Shelter Yetu, Centre for Human Rights and Democracy, and Maendeleo Ya Wanawake, and their efforts were to be coordinated by Nairobi-based National Focal Point (Ibid.). The NGOs’ language largely reflected their orientation rather than the voices of the people whose communities were targeted for this war. In some practicing communities in various parts of Kenya, NGO activities strove to offer alternatives to FGM. Eradication strategies included information and education campaigns, initially focused on making known the health risks entailed in genital operations, and on sensitizing key members—leaders, elders, and teachers—in practicing communities. Next, alternative rituals were
