This Kenyan Activist Said No to ‘Cut’


In the Maasai community, female genital mutilation refers to the removal of the entire outside of the clitoris. The practice was banned in Kenya, but the Masai elders of Leng’ete spoke of the cut in terms of identity and cultural ideals of femininity. Without it, they said, women couldn’t marry or have children – which means men couldn’t either. “Their families are ashamed,” writes Leng’ete, “and the girls are ostracized.” Before he arrived, every female member of his family had gone through the procedure. By the age of 6, Leng’ete knew she didn’t want to be like them. This not only made him an oddity in the society he was in, it also put his life at risk. However, as he observed, it was tradition that deserved to die.

Leng’ete’s memories begin in the most dangerous place in the world for many women: at home. “How someone gets out of an event depends on what they get into it,” a psychologist recently told the Observer. This may explain Leng’ete’s reaction to the difficulties she would face later: Her home was a happy home with parents who loved and nurtured her. They nicknamed her “Karembo”, meaning “beautiful”. His mother awoke at dawn to make sure her children went to school with clean clothes and full bellies. His father, a respected community leader, inspired his passion for activism. Leng’ete died when he was 7 years old, and Leng’ete’s mother followed soon after.

When my mother died, I was older, a teenager, and had time and space to grieve for her. Allowing this process, I know now, was a luxury and something that Leng’ete, who was still a child when he was orphaned, did not have. Instead, a parade of characters that many would only encounter stereotypically in movies emerged to scare the kid. There’s a greedy uncle who usurps his legacy, and his guardian’s cruel new wife who abuses him physically and verbally. “Most of the time I didn’t say anything,” Leng’ete writes. “I did my job. I cried silently and only when I was alone. If no one saw me, no one hit me. I was already small. I did everything I could to shrink anything down.”

By the time she turns 8, Leng’ete’s life may, for all intents and purposes, have ended – instead, she begins again with her iron will. A final beating convinces him to go to boarding school. By then she had specialized in running – even avoiding cuts, becoming the only girl in her community to avoid injury.

Leng’ete completes his education, goes to university, and, while still in his late teens, is spotted by a project officer at the African Foundation for Medicine and Research (Amref). She sees her encourage the girls in her town to escape the cut and the life given to them as Maasai women. He is impressed by his persuasiveness. A risk to life is also a risk to live, Homi Bhabha said, and convincingly expressed the cost of obeying Leng’e. “They can see my life,” he writes. “They could see that I was the first girl in our village to go to college, and I was healthy and happy even without the interruption.”



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