Rescuing Maasai Girls From Female Circumcision

UNICEF estimates that more than 130 million girls and women around the world have undergone genital circumcision to date. At least 2 million girls every year-6,000 each day-are at risk. The practice, which is generally done without anesthetic, may have lifelong health consequences including chronic infection, severe pain during urination, menstruation, sexual intercourse, and childbirth, not to mention psychological trauma. Although there are no official numbers, it's a known fact that some girls die from the ritual, usually as a result of bleeding or infection.

Female circumcision is mainly practiced in the name of tradition and culture, as an initiation rite. The practice is one of the rituals that defines who is in the culture. A number of other reasons are put forward - these include the belief that it annuls or moderates sexual desire in women. Despite widespread documentation of infection, it is also believed to be more hygienic.

The Maasai, an indigenous African tribe of semi-nomadic people located in Kenya and northern Tanzania, are among the groups that sees the practice as an inherited cultural tradition.

Agnes Pareyio is a women's rights activist who has undergone the ritual herself. Seeing it as primitive and inhumane practice, she has made the battle to end female circumcision as her main goal in life. In October of 2005, the UN named Pareyio as "Person of the Year" for her contribution toward promoting gender equality and empowerment of women in Kenya.

During the last seven years, Pareyio has not only been raising awareness about the dangers of circumcision among Maasai women, but she has been actually fighting tribal leaders and Maasai Parliamentarians to make them ban this practice.