{"id":2841,"date":"2019-01-10T00:14:59","date_gmt":"2019-01-10T00:14:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/?p=2841"},"modified":"2019-01-10T00:14:59","modified_gmt":"2019-01-10T00:14:59","slug":"schoolgirls-in-kenya-to-face-compulsory-tests-for-pregnancy-and-fgm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/2019\/01\/10\/schoolgirls-in-kenya-to-face-compulsory-tests-for-pregnancy-and-fgm\/","title":{"rendered":"Schoolgirls in Kenya to face compulsory tests for pregnancy and FGM"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Plans to subject schoolgirls in Kenya<\/a> to mandatory tests for female genital mutilation and pregnancy are a violation of victims\u2019 privacy, campaigners have warned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All girls returning to school this week in Narok, Kenya, will be examined at local health facilities as part of a countywide crackdown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Girls found to have undergone FGM, which is illegal, will be required to give a police statement. Those who are pregnant will be asked to identify the man involved, according to George Natembeya, the Narok County commissioner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Narok County has the highest teenage pregnancy rates in Kenya, while FGM is prevalent among the Maasai community. But campaigners say the tests are humiliating for girls, do not tackle the root causes of teenage pregnancy, and are unlikely to improve prosecution rates for FGM.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne of the biggest gaps in the prosecution of FGM cases is lack of evidence. It\u2019s not [a lack of] evidence of girls being cut, but evidence of the actual act,\u201d said Felister Gitonga, programme officer of an Equality Now team devoted to ending harmful practices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gitonga said that the county\u2019s efforts to tackle FGM were welcome, but added: \u201cWe need a different strategy ensuring we respect the girls\u2019 right to privacy and also that we have a clear plan of what we do with the information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen we find out that a girl has gone through FGM, what will be the consequences? Will there be psycho-social support? Or does this mean that she will be denied permission to go to school?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mandatory examinations risked further victimising girls who have experienced abuse, warned Gitonga.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All forms of FGM were criminalised<\/a> in Kenya in 2011, as was discrimination against of women who have not undergone the procedure. Failing to report a case to the authorities was also made unlawful, together with aiding the performance of FGM or taking a Kenyan woman abroad to perform the procedure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The practice is becoming less prevalent across the country, where\u00a0one in five women and girls<\/a>\u00a0aged 15 to 49 have undergone FGM.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Campaigners say tackling FGM is crucial to stopping teenage pregnancies and child marriage. \u201cFor girls who have undergone FGM, the community believes that those girls become a woman. Therefore every other violation that happens at that point happens [after] the FGM,\u201d said Gitonga. \u201cIf they are having sex even with older men the community does not recognise it as defilement.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Narok, four in 10 girls become pregnant as teenagers, according to Kenya\u2019s most recent demographic and health survey<\/a>, produced in 2014.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Efforts to reduce teen pregnancies will fail unless gender-based violence and poverty are addressed, added Gitonga.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor girls living in informal settlements, it is very hard; there is a risk of sexual violence. Sometimes they have to do sex work to help with educating their siblings. So you need to understand their situation,\u201d she said. \u201cYou can\u2019t just punish people for getting pregnant.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Plans to subject schoolgirls in Kenya to mandatory tests for female genital mutilation and pregnancy are a violation of victims\u2019 privacy, campaigners have warned. All girls returning to school this week in Narok, Kenya, will be examined at local health facilities as part of a countywide crackdown. Girls found to have undergone FGM, which is illegal, will be required to give a… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":109,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/109"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2841"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2842,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2841\/revisions\/2842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}