At a tender age of 11 years, Irene Cherop Jepkeitany ran away from home to escape what her community made her believe was a traditional obligation – circumcision, also known as Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).

Irene found a safe haven in a rescue centre supported by World Vision that is part of development organization’s anti-FGM campaign.  It offers girls an “Alternative Rite of Passage” (ARP), a training program which promotes some of the traditional rituals that lead girls to womanhood, but excludes the brutal circumcision.

World Vision program manager, Pamela Wamalwa, is optimistic the prevalence of FGM and early marriage is slowly reducing.
“We have been working with community members to educate them on the negative effects of FGM,” explains Wamalwa.
World Vision is also helping female circumcisers who are willing to stop the practice find alternative income generating activities. For example, through KADET, a microfinance unit of World Vision, these women can access loans to start up an alternative small businesses.

Graduation Day
Tabitha Parteneu, World Vision’s girl child project coordinator cannot hide her joy as she prepares more than 80 girls for graduation from the ARP program. This unique program brings girls together in a secluded setting to learn about the effects of FGM, early marriage and HIV and AIDS.

Irene Cherop has just graduated. “I have graduated to adulthood without losing my dignity,” she says. “Some of my friends dropped out of school, got married and shared with me how crude tools were used to circumcise them; I wish they had run away like me.”

Seventeen-year-old Daisy Kiplagat has just completed her high school education and for many she is a role model. “I said no to FGM because I knew the dangers,” she said. “During the ARP training we also learned that women who undergo FGM are more likely to experience difficulties during childbirth and that their babies are more likely to die as a result of the wicked practice."

Zakayo Lolpejalai, who works for World Vision in the North Rift area of Kenya, says that some communities are so enslaved to retrogressive beliefs that girls have no say at all, and are not considered ready for marriage until they are circumcised.

“More often than not the girls are married off to men old enough to be their grandfather,” he adds. “Their parents receive blankets, sugar and tobacco in exchange for their daughters.”

Child Protection issue
According to Caroline Nalianya, child rights national coordinator at World Vision Kenya, FGM is a child protection issue.
“The children and sexual offences acts passed in 2006 outlaw FGM practice and World Vision embraces this law of the land,” she explains.

“FGM affects the education of the girl, causing premature school dropouts and early marriage. It is a health right for girls not to be circumcised.”

World Vision has assisted the community through the construction of the Ng’ambo and Sandai girls’ dormitories which act as rescue centres for the girls as they wait to be reconciled with their parents.