By
Mwangi Wilson Murimi
Two news features aired on NTV and KTN about the
young girls beading culture among the Samburu were shocking. They unearthed the
distressing plight of the girl child, especially in the largely unlettered
pastoralist communities.
The fact that humiliation, mistreatment and
castigation of the girl child continues in the country in this century is a clear
justification that marginalization of pastoral communities must cease and such
communities must be given equal access to not only formal education but also
national protection from harmful cultures.
It is disquieting to come to terms with the agony that
the Samburu girls undergo due to the community’s adherence to the antiquated culture
of morans beading young girls to later on subject them to sexual torture.
It’s very disheartening that, girls as young as 9
years old are subjected to sexual torture by Samburu Morans with the full
knowledge of the rest of the community. In fact, under the Samburu culture the
mother of a beaded girl build her a hut where Moran comes to have unprotected
with the girl. Even more worrisome, the same girls are treated as outcasts when
they conceive under the hands of the morans.
The morans are at liberty to immediately dump the
pregnant girls leaving them at the mercy of fate since the community is not
willing to accept any girl who becomes a mother before undergoing the horrific Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)!
Local quacks
then find an easy extortion cartel by conducting crude abortions that are not
only painful but which also put the lives of the young girl at risk.
And in complete disregard of the importance of life,
girls who by any chance give birth undergoing the mandatory FGM are forced to
discard their babies into the bush to be feasted on by wild animals.
Ironically, the two features came on the very day
when the rest of the country was celebrating the county’s heroes and heroines. It
beats logic for the country to celebrate economic and political gains made
through self rule after the liberation of the nation when some of our ethnic
communities continue practicing harmful practices such as the beading among the
Samburu, forced abortions and genital female mutilation!
The government must institute development of
marginalized pastoral areas to ward off these disgusting practices that have
continued to drag us behind in attaining vision 2030 and the millennium
development goals.
Emphasis must be made in funding the education of
members of the pastoral communities. Non governmental organizations (NGOs) and
human right groups must also cease to be extortion cartels for international
funds. They must be on the forefront in pushing for the development of such
communities since they are also entitle to formal education and protection from
harmful practices.
(The writer
is a fourth year media student at Maseno University. wilsonmurimi@yahoo.com)
