'After being cut I bled excessively,' Woman narrates ordeal after undergoing FGM
A Pokot woman from Baringo County recalls how she almost lost her life due to excessive bleeding after being forced to undergo Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).
Jeniffer Kibon, 54, from Tangulbei- Tiaty Sub-county says she was hardly 13-year old, when her parents pushed her to accompany seven mates to face the cut in 1978.
“After being cut I bled excessively until I fainted and lost consciousness. My traditional helpers forced me to take couple of cups of raw cow’s blood until I regained after three days” Kibon said.
She was among the participants during the African Zero-tolerance to FGM celebration at Loita in Narok County today on Wednesday.
She said what stressed her most is how she almost lost her life. “Due to stress I appeared sickly and emaciated and so I was then isolated from the rest and was taken to stay alone far away down in the river for fears that I may have been bewitched” she said.
She says after healing and graduating she was forced, beaten and married off immediately to a man whom she didn’t even love and “she had eight children with him”
She recalls a time she lost her pregnancy due to complication during delivery, “I underwent an operation in the hospital but unfortunately I lost my baby” she said.
Kibon further said she separated with her husband in 2013 after quarreling with her demanding to have her three daughters circumcised before marrying them off.
“I had since stood my ground to decline not to have any of my children undergo the painful path of the knife as I did, he even chased me away and married three more women but I decided to raise my kids alone” she said
The woman further said so far some of her children have finished school; two of them are already in the University “while I continue working hard to pay the rest school fees”.
She is among over 2,000 women who formed the renowned Tangubei Women Netwrok chaired by Mary Kuket.
However, Kuket condemned those members of the pokot, Tugen and Ilchamus community who still practice the female cut in Baringo, calling upon the relevant authorities including chiefs to take legal action against them.
“Especially now as the perpetrators are preparing to procure the unlawful act this coming April, the security department should be vigilant to arrest and bring them to book” she said.
She says last year alone, more than 2,000 girls from pokot community were forced to undergo the cut in the bush despite the government ban.
Through the women network, she helped to rescue some 50 girls aged between 10 and 14 year who are currently being housed and schooling at Tangulbei primary school.
The girls hail from Karoiwo, Kabalabata, Kakaryakales, Kasitet, Kasokon, Bombo, Korolwo Nasorot villages.
“Our parents here in pokot take us girls as less human beings, they mistreat us by forcing us to get circumcised and later get married to men of their own choice in order to get wealth of livestock paid as dowry ” one of the victims said.
Sources hinted that currently one has to pay at least two goats or sh3, 000 to a traditional circumciser to cut one girl. The rite is normally practiced between the months of April, August and December.
However, the source said a man suitor of the parents’ choice is forced to part with 50 goats, 30 cows and 10 camels to marry the circumcised young girl as his wife.
-Joseph Kangogo