FGM in Kenya: Rites of Womanhood
Info

KENYA

A Pokot girl is smeared with a natural white paint by other women as part of the ceremony after having being circumcised, about 80 kilometres from the town of Marigat in Baringo County, Kenya, October 17, 2014. The circumcision is done by an elder of the community. The ceremony starts the evening before the girls get circumcised and involves women and elders of the community gathering together, singing and dancing through out the night in encouragement to the girls who together wait inside a hut for first light. The traditional practice of circumcision within the Pokot is a right of passage that marks the transition to womanhood and a requirement to marriage within the community.

Filename
017.Circumcision_forced_marriage_Kenya's_Pokots_Modola.jpg
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Siegfried Modola/Reuters
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3300x2200 / 1.4MB
A Pokot girl is smeared with a natural white paint by other women as part of the ceremony after having being circumcised, about 80 kilometres from the town of Marigat in Baringo County, Kenya, October 17, 2014. The circumcision is done by an elder of the community. The ceremony starts the evening before the girls get circumcised and involves women and elders of the community gathering together, singing and dancing through out the night in encouragement to the girls who together wait inside a hut for first light. The traditional practice of circumcision within the Pokot is a right of passage that marks the transition to womanhood and a requirement to marriage within the community.