Nipate
Forum => Kenya Discussion => Topic started by: Kim Jong-Un's Pajama Pants on September 27, 2019, 05:49:58 PM
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This happened in 2017.
“Don’t leave me! I’m begging you, please don’t leave!” The young woman screamed amidst gasps for air as the waves of pain around her womb grew worse and drifted closer to one another.
Florence Sinet, 24, had gone into labour a few hours earlier while at her house in Loodokilani, Kajiado. When her waters broke, she asked her husband to take her to hospital, but her husband, in his late 50s, insisted that she deliver the child at home, the traditional way.
He called the local traditional midwife who arrived within minutes and started attending to Sinet. The midwife examined the labouring woman and immediately realised that this was going to be a difficult birth. The baby had not descended properly and needed to be turned before it could be delivered.
Good thing that the sexagenarian already had dozens of home births under her belt, a good number of which had similar, if not worse, complications. She had only lost a few babies and even fewer mothers. However, when she examined Sinet, she suddenly rose to her feet and stumbled backwards, a horrified look on her face. She then turned and ran out of the room.
The father-to-be paced back and forth outside the bedroom, anxiously wringing his sweaty palms. That’s when he heard his wife’s pleas.
“Please don’t leave!” whimpered an exhausted Sinet.
Sinet’s husband grabbed the midwife’s arm as she exited the bedroom and demanded to know what the problem was.
“Your wife is not a woman! I cannot bring into this world a child born of a girl. It will be an abomination, especially since the child is a boy,” the midwife replied.
She had discovered while examining Sinet that she had not undergone the cut, and according to Maasai tradition, it was anathema for the traditional midwife to assist in bringing to the world a child by a woman who was not circumcised.
Time was running out. Sinet’s husband, torn between reacting to this new information and saving the life of his yet-to-be-born son, asked the midwife what options they had.
“We have to cut her right now. Only then can we deliver this child without attracting a curse,” she replied without skipping a beat.
By this time, they were back in the bedroom, standing over the young woman, moaning and writhing in pain. When she was told what was about to happen, Sinet tried to negotiate.
“Please, I will undergo the cut once I have recovered after the birth,” she said. But the midwife would hear none of it, and the husband could not risk the wrath of the gods. Florence Sinet underwent female genital mutilation (FGM) at childbirth. She passed out from the excruciating pain. She lost so much blood that she needed a transfusion. She would spend three weeks at the Kajiado County Referral Hospital before she could go back home to her family.
Sinet, now 26, has always considered herself the lucky one. Born in a remote village in Loodokilani Ward on the western side of the vast and sparsely populated Kajiado County, Sinet was one of few girls in the village to go to primary school.
“I was the third child in a family of five girls. Though the boy child is considered more valuable than the girl in the Maasai community, having girls also comes with its set of advantages. My sisters and I guaranteed that my father will never be poor because we would all bring in vast wealth in terms of cows and money when we got married off,” says Sinet.
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https://www.nation.co.ke/news/fgm-childbirth-kenya/1056-5285292-7srvi0z/index.html (https://www.nation.co.ke/news/fgm-childbirth-kenya/1056-5285292-7srvi0z/index.html)
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I hope the midwife and husband are behind bars. Ignorance is not a defense.
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I hope the midwife and husband are behind bars. Ignorance is not a defense.
Same here. It's not possible to even try and understand where they are coming from. Not in 2017.
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Oy! A German woman asked me about FGM yesterday. This is one of those things that tempts me to disown my Africanness. What a disgrace. Robina, this is the stuff that should inform you that Africans are largely from 3,000 years ago, Bazungu time. :D I feel sorry for the hubby, but I'd still jail his behind. Not because I don't understand but because there's no negotiating with/fading iron-age barbarism: you punish it out of existence. Ruthlessly. That's the only way. It's how the British killed widow-burning in India.
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Oy! A German woman asked me about FGM yesterday. This is one of those things that tempts me to disown my Africanness. What a disgrace. Robina, this is the stuff that should inform you that Africans are largely from 3,000 years ago, Bazungu time. :D I feel sorry for the hubby, but I'd still jail his behind. Not because I don't understand but because there's no negotiating with/fading iron-age barbarism: you punish it out of existence. Ruthlessly. That's the only way. It's how the British killed widow-burning in India.
Yep. I also think the 2yr penalty in the law is a slap on the wrist. FGM should be treated like rape because it ruins the victim's life almost irreparably.
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This use to happen in kalenjin land...but now this is criminal
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Oy! A German woman asked me about FGM yesterday. This is one of those things that tempts me to disown my Africanness. What a disgrace. Robina, this is the stuff that should inform you that Africans are largely from 3,000 years ago, Bazungu time. :D I feel sorry for the hubby, but I'd still jail his behind. Not because I don't understand but because there's no negotiating with/fading iron-age barbarism: you punish it out of existence. Ruthlessly. That's the only way. It's how the British killed widow-burning in India.
Makes me wonder alot about that relatively fast evolution you alluded to. :D
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Kenyan tribes are going backwards. I am not sure if it is because of poverty. Even in kikuyu land customs that were abandoned 50 years ago are on the rise again. FGM is a curse that wont go away. Maasai's need reeducation camps to move them to at least 18th century