Montrealer seeks to end female genital mutilation by educating girls, elders

In just three years, a former Montrealer helped end the 2,500-year-old tradition of female genital mutilation in one Kenyan village.

"I wouldn't need a plane to go back I was flying so high on this news," said Sayydah Garrett, the founder of the Pastoralist Child Foundation, which seeks to mobilize women against the practice.

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Garrett,a VanierCollegealumna, spoke with CBC'sDaybreakabout her work in Kenya.

Herfoundation has been working with locals northern Kenya, to try to change mindsets.

When she first visitedNamayiana village in Kenya'sSamburu County three years ago,Garrett said the subject of genital mutilationwas taboo.

"Women don't talk to men about this, and whatever the village elders saygoes."

But after her work there, Garrett saidvillage woman have decided to completely stop the practice of cutting girls.

Around 90 per cent of women cut

The UN estimates more than a quarter of Kenyan girls are cut before puberty. Garrett said that for the tribes she works with, it's closer to 90 per cent.

Seeing how common this practice was on a visit to Kenya several years ago compelled Garrett to start the foundation. She got a grant from UNICEF and began working with six villages.

She said people in these communities aren't aware of the effects of this mutilation.

Despite the practice being illegal, it continues as a rite of passage to womanhood. Only after a girl is cut is she considered acceptable for marriage.

A razorbladeand no anesthesia

Female genital mutilation is also known as female circumcision, but Garrett said that term sanitizes the reality of the procedure.

"Basically there's an old woman called a circumciser who lines up girls on the ground. Girls are held down by other women, their legs are spread and their clitoris is cut off with a razor blade no anesthesia. So you if can image the pain, the screaming, the blood everywhere."

The foundation seeks to establish alternative rites of passage to womanhood.

This means educating girls, as wells as boys and elders in the village, about the harmful effects of the practice. Locals deliver the workshops.

"The young men who are coming to our workshops are going out and saying, 'We should marry girls who are not cut.'"

But trying to change the traditions in patriarchal tribes hasn't always been easy. The foundation's director has received death threats.

Gynocologistssuggest alternative

In February two U.S. gynecologistswrote in the Journal of Medical Ethics that allowing small surgical nicks to girls' genitalia might be preferable to trying to ban the practice.

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Garrettdoesn't agree with that approach.

"When I heard about it I really thought this would set us back. A nick, a cut, a pinholeI don't care what you call it, I think it's totally unacceptable."