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FGM forces 10 year-old girls to flee homes

“I wish my two sisters will escape the cut. My two older sisters were cut and already married off. The same may happen to the younger ones if they don’t run away.”

15-year-old Esther Fadira was unlucky after she underwent the cut at the age of 14. Fadira arrived at Tasaru rescue centre last Monday.

She is timid and it is difficult to hear her during the interview but through the help of a translator, Fadira in a hushed voice slowly narrated her agony in the hands of her parents.

The physical scars inflicted on her face are subtle compared to the emotional trauma she has undergone in the name of cultural practices.

Her smooth black beautiful face bears pink marks of deep wounds and cuts meted on her by a man supposed to be her husband.

“My uncle brought the man who was to marry me. I saw him for the first time on that day. They told me that I was to become his wife. I refused but he caught me and beat me up using his stick,” Fadira narrates as she recounts the nasty ordeal of being roughed on her entire young body with her parents watching and doing nothing about it.

Though Fadira was rescued by Tasaru, the scars on her young face will remain a constant reminder of acts committed by unscrupulous men in the name of marrying underage girls to fulfil cultural demands.

But the scars will also remind her of the day she got a chance to go to school at the age of 15.

The practice of FGM continues to be an eyesore that has robbed young girls of their youth, health and education.

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While major focus on FGM is on the Maasai community in Kenya, North Eastern region which is dominated by the Somali takes the lead with 97.6 percent of girls undergoing the cut. Kisii region follows closely at 96 percent then Kuria and Pokot which also have over 90 percent of girls undergoing FGM.

The Maasai community is at 76 percent, Embu 51 percent and Meru at 45 percent.

Despite Kenya having the Children’s Act 2001 and the Prohibition of FGM Act 2011, the cultural practice continues to mess the lives of young girls and lead them to forced early marriages.

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