Research Note on a Grassroots Movement to Eradicate Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting Among Kenyan Maasai

The Maasai are pastoralists who live in northern Tanzania and western Kenya. In Maasai culture, boys and girls undergo “circumcision,” called emurata in Maa, as rites of passage into adulthood when they reach about 15 years of age. In Kenya, emurata of girls, which institutions such as the United Nations call female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C), is strictly forbidden by the 2011 Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation Act. However, FGM/C is still prevalent among the Maasai despite many eradication programs.

The author studied the eradication of FGM/C between January 2013 and September 2019 in a Maasai community in western Kenya (Hayashi 2021). This paper focuses on the activities of an organization called “Osotua” (a pseudonym for privacy) that was established by a Maasai woman in the 1990s to eradicate FGM/C.