THE GUARDIAN: Margaret, who has put more girls through FGM than she can remember, says cutters ask her how they will eat if they stop
There can be few women who understand both the agonies and the economics of female genital mutilation better than Margaret, a grandmother in her 70s from Pokot, northern Kenya.
Her life has spanned the clumsy colonial efforts to ban the practice, which saw it become a cultural cornerstone of the Mau Mau uprising against British rule, right through to independent Kenya's decision to re[-]impose the prohibition.
She has also put more girls than she can remember under the knife. When Margaret started, the tool of choice was a curved nail; more recently this has been replaced with imported razor blades.
The work, she concedes, is gruelling: frightened young girls would typically sit naked on a rock; once done, their excised clitorises would be thrown to the birds. For the cutters, or "koko mekong", who can earn 2,500 Kenyan shillings (£18) for each girl, it is a livelihood.
"The cutters ask me: 'If we leave doing this thing, what will we eat?'" Margaret says. "Tell the government to give us what to eat. If it's just workshops then it will be no use. The circumcisers will not leave their career simply because they're being told to leave it."
The "cut" has been outlawed in Kenya since 2001. Despite this, a public health survey in 2009 found that 27% of women had been subject to FGM. Among some ethnic groups – such as the Somalis (98%) and Masai (73%) – that figure is much higher. » | Daniel Howden in Baringo County | Friday, February 07, 2014
