By MN Reporter

Two Migori based NGOs have called for the end of Female Genital Mutilation in Kuria raising alarm over involvement of medics.

Migori Community Traditional Negative Practice Mitigation Organisation (Micontrap) and Rural AIDS Prevention And Development Organization (RAPADO) has urged residents of Migori to shun female circumcision and instead embrace change.

Addressing the press in Migori town earlier today, the two said , doctors, nurses and other health practitioners of some communities are secretly performing the procedures at the request of families.

Rapado’s representative Paul Omolle Opinya said health care providers now perform up to 18 percent of FGM cases and the trend is growing, according to the World Health Organization.

Opinya said a mix of religious, cultural, and social factors perpetuate the practice adding that in many communities the partial removal of woman’s external genitalia is part of the traditional rite of passage from girlhood to womanhood.

Sharing his sentiments, Micontrap’s Executive Director Mark Okeyo said traditional circumcisers have often been accused of using unsterilized tools which has seen elites move on to medics.

“With the biting anti-FGM law, most elites are turning over to medics for clandestine circumcision for fear of arrest,” Okeyo said.

Micontrap also said violence against women raised an alarming level with at least five reported cases across the country including five women who were stripped off naked and also stripped off their dignity.

“These actions are barbaric and should continually be condemned and culprits severely punished,” Okeyo said.

The two organisations appealed to the government to deal with gender based violence by introduction of National Policy on Prevention and Response to Gender Based Violence that seeks to fight the gender inequalities.

They appreciated this effort but said more enforcement of policies and plans should be crucially carried out to prevent and bringing to justice the increased incidences of gender based violence.