In a speech on Kenya’s independence day, Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi promised to rigorously enforce a new law making female genital mutilation practices illegal on girls under 17. “Anyone found circumcising a girl of 16 will go straight to jail,” Moi said.
He also promised police protection for any young girl threatened with female genital mutilation.
Moi affirmed, however, that females 17 and older would be able to choose for themselves whether to undergo the procedure saying that, “for girls above the age of 16 years, it is their choice to be circumcised or not. Should they not want to be circumcised, they shall also be protected by the new law.”
According to the BBC, a 1998 survey found that 38 percent of Kenyan women aged 15 to 49 had undergone female genital mutilation.
Source:
Kenya bans FGM among young. The BBC, December 12, 2001.
The Kenya’s President Says He’ll Enforce Ban on Genital Mutilation by Brian Carnell, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.
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