A police officer has been killed in a confrontation with a gang of youths after rescuing some survivors of female genital mutilation (FGM) in Kenya.
The Guardian UK reports that activists and local leaders condemned the murder, calling it a backward step in the fight to eradicate the practice in the country.
Police in Elgeyo Marakwet county, in the Rift Valley region, had taken a group of girls who had been forced to undergo the illegal procedure to hospital when a mob of young men stormed a police station and stoned Cpl Mushote Boma to death.
“Angry youth raided the police post in a bid to get the girls, who had been rescued by police after they were genitally mutilated, where they overpowered the officer who was on duty and stoned him to death before burning his body using a mattress,” reported the government-owned Kenya news agency.
The six girls are recuperating at a local hospital, according to county police commander Peter Mulinge.
Female genital mutilation, or “the cut”, remains illegal in Kenya but is still being practised in some places, usually during school holidays, by women using crude methods and tools. There have been cases of activists being attacked by those carrying out FGM, but assaults on law enforcement officers are rare.
“It is shocking and disheartening that in the 21st century we can kill a police officer rescuing girls undergoing the inhumane act,” said Tony Mwebia, founder and executive director of the not-for-profit Men End FGM Foundation that aims to rally men and boys against FGM and child marriages.
“Were these men who killed the policeman aware of why they were protecting the backward culture? Do they have any idea of the harm caused by the cut?”
Mwebia, whose organisation has since trained nearly 500 male champions in counties where FGM exists, says men cringe when they are shown videos of the cut, a rite they traditionally believe is undertaken for their benefit.
“They are told the cut makes women more mature and avoid promiscuity. They are also told that they will lose any respect within the community by marrying an uncut woman. That is why they will kill anyone, including a policeman, who interferes with the cut,” Mwebia said.
