She Ran From the Cut (FGM), and Helped Thousands of Other Girls Escape, Too

She Ran From the Cut, and Helped Thousands of Other Girls Escape, Too (and just think, she is from one of those ****hole countries, too)


Maasai girls singing and dancing at a rite-of-passage ceremony, conducted as an alternative to genital cutting, in Lenkisem, Kenya. Credit Andrea Bruce for The New York Times

LENKISEM, Kenya — The first time cutting season came around, Nice Leng’ete and her older sister ran away and hid all night in a tree. The second time, her sister refused to hide. For Maasai families, the cutting ceremony is a celebration that transforms girls into women and marks daughters as eligible brides. But to 8-year-old Nice, it seemed like a threat: She’d be held down by bigger, stronger women, and her clitoris would be cut. She’d bleed, a lot. Most girls fainted. Some died. Still, her sister gave in. “I had tried to tell her, ‘We are running for something that’s worth it,’ ” recalled Ms. Leng’ete, now 27. “But I couldn’t help her.”

Ms. Leng’ete never forgot what her sister suffered, and as she grew up, she was determined to protect other Maasai girls. She started a program that goes village to village, collaborating with elders and girls to create a new rite of passage — without the cutting. In seven years, she has helped 50,000 girls avoid the cutting ritual.

In Lenkisem, 450 girls from 10 neighboring villages participated in a three-day program that included education and an alternative rite-of-passage ceremony. Credit Andrea Bruce for The New York
Nice Leng’ete, left, cooking dinner with her sister Soila Leng’ete, center, and her cousin Elizabeth Solia in Nairobi. Nice Leng’ete has helped 50,000 girls avoid the cutting ritual. Credit Andrew Renneisen for The New York Times

Her work mirrors national — and global — trends. Rates of female genital cutting worldwide have fallen 14 percent in the last 30 years. Here in Kenya, cases have fallen more than twice that fast.
New laws have made a difference, here and elsewhere. Kenya outlawed female genital cutting in 2011, and a special unit for investigating cutting cases, opened in 2014, prosecuted 76 cases in its first two years. But laws made in the capital often have little effect on culture in the countryside, where custom is deeply ingrained and men’s power is virtually absolute.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/13/world/africa/female-genital-mutilation-kenya.html