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A police officer has been killed in a confrontation with a gang of youths after rescuing some survivors of female genital mutilation (FGM) in Kenya.
The Guardian UK reports that
activists and local leaders condemned the murder, calling it a backward step in
the fight to eradicate the practice in the country.
Police in Elgeyo Marakwet
county, in the Rift Valley region, had taken a group of girls who had been
forced to undergo the illegal procedure to hospital when a mob of young men
stormed a police station and stoned Cpl Mushote Boma to death.
“Angry youth raided the police
post in a bid to get the girls, who had been rescued by police after they were
genitally mutilated, where they overpowered the officer who was on duty and
stoned him to death before burning his body using a mattress,” reported the
government-owned Kenya news agency.
The six girls are recuperating
at a local hospital, according to county police commander Peter Mulinge.
Female genital mutilation, or
“the cut”, remains illegal in Kenya but is still being practised in some
places, usually during school holidays, by women using crude methods and tools.
There have been cases of activists being attacked by those carrying out FGM,
but assaults on law enforcement officers are rare.
“It is shocking and
disheartening that in the 21st century we can kill a police officer rescuing
girls undergoing the inhumane act,” said Tony Mwebia, founder and executive
director of the not-for-profit Men End FGM Foundation that aims to rally men
and boys against FGM and child marriages.
“Were these men who killed the
policeman aware of why they were protecting the backward culture? Do they have
any idea of the harm caused by the cut?
Mwebia, whose organisation has
since trained nearly 500 male champions in counties where FGM exists, says men
cringe when they are shown videos of the cut, a rite they traditionally believe
is undertaken for their benefit.
“They are told the cut makes
women more mature and avoid promiscuity. They are also told that they will lose
any respect within the community by marrying an uncut woman. That is why they
will kill anyone, including a policeman, who interferes with the cut,” Mwebia
said.
Mwebia was attacked by another
group of men in Kuria in December 2016 after he and a colleague were suspected
of filming a street parade of girls undergoing the cut.
A local administrator, who
asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals, said the attack on law
enforcement officers will embolden perpetrators.
“Killing a police officer in
the name of FGM worries me,” he said. “We know FGM is illegal in Kenya, but
just enforcing the law without adequate public sensitisation against the vice
will have little success. There must be a robust conversation with local people
if we are to stem the FGM tide in the region.”
About 70 girls were rescued by
the police, with Viola Cherono, a human rights activist from the region,
reporting that as many as 500 girls had been assembling in the forest to
undergo the practice.
Around the country,
particularly in Kisii county, roadside pharmacies double as FGM clinics.
“Girls are being cut every day
in the Endo and Embobut wards. The people in Embobut are very wild and if you
are an activist or the police, they will come and get you,” she told the paper.
Bernadette Loloju, chief
executive officer of the Anti-FGM Board in Kenya, said the killing was “an
isolated incident beyond human thinking”, but that it should not be used to
gauge the extent of the fight against the practice.
“Cases of FGM have come down in
communities that were strongly for the cut, mainly because girls have come out
to say no,” said Loloju.
“Although women are the
perpetrators of the cut, we continue to engage the elders who are the cultural
gatekeepers. These are the men who are shocked when they see videos of how FGM
is done.”
Mwebia said the war against FGM
will only be won if “we don’t waste resources in conferences but change our
strategies”.
“There is political goodwill,
right from the country’s top leadership. The silence from men will be the
biggest barrier.”
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