19/07/2025
🧔🏾♂️💔 “IT STARTS WITH US”: THE ROLE OF MEN IN ENDING FGM
✍🏾 Written by Jelida Foundation – Empowering Communities, Ending Harm
In many Kenyan communities, Female Ge***al Mutilation (FGM) has been practiced for generations. It's often viewed as a rite of passage or a way to “prepare” girls for marriage. But let’s face the truth — FGM is violence. It is illegal. And it is destroying our girls.
💡 What is FGM?
FGM involves the partial or total removal of the female ge***alia for non-medical reasons. It causes severe bleeding, chronic infections, childbirth complications, and lifelong trauma. In Kenya, it is banned under the Prohibition of FGM Act, 2011, and is considered a criminal offense.
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📊 The Reality in Meru and Kenya
As of the 2022 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey (KDHS), 15% of girls and women aged 15–49 in Kenya have undergone FGM.
In Meru County, pockets of the community — especially in Tigania East, Igembe Central, Igembe south and Igembe North — still practice FGM, often secretly.
UNICEF reports that more than 4 million girls in Kenya are at risk of FGM.
According to Plan International, Meru has seen increased “underground” cutting during school holidays, often referred to as "cutting seasons."
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🧔🏽 So Where Do MEN Come In?
For too long, FGM has been treated as a "women’s issue." But the truth is, men are gatekeepers of culture, marriage, and community power. Many of the reasons girls are cut — to be "marriageable," to be “pure,” or to obey tradition — are based on what men are taught to expect from women.
It is time we change that. Here’s how men can help end FGM once and for all:
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✅ 1. Speak Out Against It – Loudly and Boldly
When fathers, brothers, and male leaders speak against FGM, they break the culture of silence. Your voice can shift generations. It tells your daughters, nieces, and sisters that they are worthy just as they are.
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✅ 2. Stop Marrying Women Who Were Cut to 'Please Culture'
One of the driving factors of FGM is the false belief that men prefer cut women. We must reject that myth. Marriage should never be based on pain and fear. Men must declare publicly:
👉 “I will not marry a woman because she was cut. I will love her for who she is—whole, healthy, and human.”
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✅ 3. Protect Our Daughters at All Costs
True fatherhood means protecting—not harming. It means refusing to allow your daughter to be mutilated, even if “everyone is doing it.” Many girls are secretly taken during school holidays to be cut. As a man, be alert. Be present. Be the shield your daughter needs.
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✅ 4. Hold Other Men Accountable
Talk to your fellow men—at the market, in the matatu, at the baraza. Let them know FGM is not culture, it’s a crime. Let’s shift the narrative from silence to protection. If you hear someone planning a cutting ceremony or condoning FGM, speak up or report it to authorities or local organizations.
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✅ 5. Partner with Women’s Groups, Don’t Compete
Women have been fighting this battle for years, but they cannot do it alone. Join them. Support organizations like Jelida Foundation that are on the frontlines in Meru—educating, rescuing, and protecting girls.
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📢 CALL TO ACTION
To all the men in Meru, and across Kenya:
We urge you to become defenders of dignity. The culture of FGM can and must end—with you, with me, with us.
👉 Let us be the generation that breaks the cycle.
👉 Let our sons be the ones who say, “My wife wasn’t cut—and I respect her more for it.”
👉 Let our daughters grow up whole—physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
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