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#FrontlineEndingFGM saves 1,611 girls from mutilation - as they support the police to stop the cutters.
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The long school holidays are a dangerous time for girls as their wounds have time to heal before they go back to school. But intense campaigns by activists on foot, on wheels, and on local radio have paid off.
And all for just $13,000 dollars in funding.
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Veteran End FGM community organiser Domtila Chesang on why the police need community volunteers like her to end FGM.
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Dear <<First Name>>,
The #FrontlineEndingFGM movement in Kenya helped 1,611 girls escape mutilation over the recent Christmas holidays. A total of 657 girls fled mass-cutting ceremonies and private mutilations to safe houses, while a further 854 were saved when local campaigners, working with the police, organised direct interventions. Police, tipped off by local campaigners, arrested 73 alleged cutters and threatened others with five-year jail sentences. But they were too late for 544 girls who were mutilated before police and local campaigns could reach their more remote villages.
Local community volunteers also arranged for police to go on local language radio stations to warn of prison sentences if the cutting went ahead.
In Kenyan hardline FGM counties, including Pokot, Kuria, Kisii, Mount Elgon, and Tana River among others, girls undergo FGM, including the worst form - the forcible removal of the clitoris and all the lips of the vulva with a razor blade and without anesthetic. The process can take up to 40 minutes while the girl is held down.
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This impact study shows how direct intervention by frontline activists supported by UNFPA works.
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In this Impact Measurement Special newsletter, we chart the effectiveness of frontline feminists and local organizations ending FGM village by village and town by town in some of the remotest parts of Kenya, where over 90 percent of girls are cut.
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IMPACT CASE STUDY
AMBROSE MERIAN | WEST POKOT COUNTY
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Ambrose Merian with eight rescued girls at Alale Ward, Pokot North sub-county, West Pokot County, Kenya.
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“In Pokot North, it is normal* for a girl to undergo FGM at the age of eight, become a bride as soon as she has grown breasts, and by the age of 13, she is likely to have two children.
~Ambrose Merian
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Above, Ambrose Merian - Pokot North #FrontlineEndingFGM campaigner saves eight girls from the cut in Alale Ward, Pokot North sub-county. The girls will stay with their parents, but his surveillance team is on close watch to ensure they will not undergo FGM. To see the impact of #FrontlineEndingFGM activist Ambrose Merian over the December-January period case by case, click the button below.
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Police Commander Mr.Wahome and his team on Igembe South watch a recording of a girl undergoing FGM as part of a campaign to get men to help to end FGM. Afterward, at a press conference arranged by #FrontlineEndingFGM activists, the Commander announced...
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“We will make arrests if you cut your girls”
~Mr. Wahome, Police Commander in Meru, Kenya.
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DANGERS IN THE FIGHT TO END FGM | KURIA, MIGORI COUNTY
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In Kuria, the home of an anti-FGM campaigner, Bishop Chacha John, was attacked by men carrying machetes who oppose his campaign to end FGM.
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They smashed the solar panels he uses for his mobile phone to warn activists where cutting is about to happen. The men warned Bishop not to continue his anti-FGM work in Getongoroma Village, Kuria. Read more about the fight to End FGM in Kuria here.
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"Working with the police is key. We need them and they need campaigners with local knowledge to stop the cutting."
~Vincent Mwita (Campaigner)
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MASS CUTTING CEREMONY IS CANCELLED WHEN POLICE INTERVENE BUT IT IS TOO LATE FOR THE OTHERS| EMBOBUT EAST
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#FrontlineEndingFGM campaigner, Sadia Hussein and her team from the Brighter Society Initiative, arrived at a village in Kapchebau Village, Emboibut East at 2 pm on 16 December to warn the cutter, Talaa Kirotich, that she would be arrested if the mass cutting went ahead. This ceremony was abandoned.
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Sadia Hussein and her team intervened to stop 58 girls from being mutilated. But in in the same region, 120 girls were cut before 5 arrests were made and the cutting was stopped.
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"#FrontlineEndingFGM working with the police to directly stop the cutting-and using the local radio to broadcast warning of jail if parents cut their children- is the most effective tactic I've seen in my 40 years researching how to stop FGM."
~Dr Tobe Levine, Associate of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University and research fellow, Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford.
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