Despite laws attempting to prevent it, Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) remains a prevalent cultural practice among the Maasai in Kenya. Global Roots is helping to change this by conducting FGM "sensitization" outreach across the Maasai Mara and TransMara regions. We also operate a safe house that temporarily shelters threatened girls so that we can find them a safe boarding school or a relative who will contractually agree not to practice this horrific human rights crime.
Female genital mutilation (FGM) includes procedures that intentionally alter female genital organs for non-medical reasons and is a severe violation of the human rights of girls and women. In Africa, an estimated 92 million girls 10 years old and above have undergone FGM. Today, 93% of Maasai girls are mutilated. While many girls bleed to death after the procedure, those who survive FGM are subsequently sold by their parents into early marriages.
Even laws struggle to change traditions when they are rooted in culture. Global Roots provides free outreach sessions to elementary school and high school girls across rural Kenya. Our outreach specialists, Silvia and Mary, are both college graduates who ran to Global Roots for protection when they were little girls. Because they graduated from college, they are seen as heroes and it's easy for them to attract large crowds of young girls who want to learn their rights to fight FGM.
To date, our programs have protected more than 80 young girls from FGM and provided thousands more with the legal info they need to protect themselves. It our is goal to end FGM among the Maasai in Kenya by 2025. Besides our hard-hitting outreach programs, we have a team that will rescue any girl who we learn is threatened. Because FGM is a federal offense, most families will immediately back down when they learn they are on our radar.
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