Women empowerment crucial to growth

Female Genital Mutilation has a direct correlation to early marriage, two social evil practices that stalk our society, despite the gains in the recent past.

These are some of the most harmful cultural practices that confront girls and women today, variously camouflaged as rites of passage, sexual purity or religious fulfillment.

They have severe consequences on the victims’ health, education and their equality in society. World Vision has argued that early marriage can have significant mental health impacts, such as anxiety and depression, occasioned by the physical implications, which can also include abuse and the social isolation experienced by child spouses, who are often removed from their families and withdrawn from school.

On the other hand, FGM violates the right to health, security and physical integrity of the person; the right to be free from torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment; and right to life when the procedure results in death. It interferes with healthy genital tissue and can affect a girl’s or a woman’s physical and mental.

FGM is nearly always carried out on children and is therefore a violation of the rights of the child, as it causes irreparable damage and lifelong suffering to the child. In some communities, once a girl has undergone FGM, she is “ready” for marriage. This leads to termination of her education, early marriage, pregnancy and a vicious cycle of domestic violence and poverty.

At least 9.3 million girls and women in Kenya have undergone FGM, or 6.64 percent of an estimated 140 million girls and women cut worldwide.

In 2014, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey, the national FGM prevalence stood at 21 per cent, down from 27 per cent in 2009, the highest drop in national FGM prevalence rates recorded in the world.

The survey indicates female circumcision is less common among younger women and is perhaps on the decline: 11 per cent of women aged between 15-19 years are circumcised compared with over 20 per cent among women over age 30. Over 40 per cent of women aged 45-49 are circumcised.

Further, education is a long-term tool to empower society to abandon harmful practices that add no value to lives, and, crucially, it delays marriage.

Investing in girls’ education has significant benefits to them, their families and communities. The inclusion of FGM information in schools’ curricula, colleges and universities can be an effective long-term strategy in abandonment of the practice.

It is an indication that we are beginning to confront what has been described by experts as the “persistence of traditional stereotypes of masculinity”, which pin girls and women to an outdated and selfish cultural environment of repression and contempt, with positive outcomes.

It has also been argued that the social drivers of FGM and early marriages’ harmful cultural practices included limited economic opportunities for women and girls, religious misconceptions, control of sexual activity and gender inequalities and norms. This puts similarities of the two in clear perspective.

Research shows investing in girls and women is the most effective investment, far beyond the individual women. Investing in women’s economic participation is a direct way to gender equality, poverty reduction and inclusive economic growth.

When an additional 10 percent of girls go to school, a country’s Gross Domestic Product increases by 3 per cent.

And by removing the barriers that prevent women from entering the labour market, work productivity increases by up to 25 per cent.

At the individual level, women spend 90 per cent of their salary on their children and the health, education and well-being of their family while men only spend 30 to 40 per cent. Girls and women constitute over half of the world’s population and contribute greatly to the world economy as consumers, employees and entrepreneurs.

They deliver a large amount of unpaid work inside and outside their homes. Girls and women constitute the majority of the world’s poor, earn far less than men, work longer and are often much worse off when it comes to access to land, natural resources, education and health

In this regard, Kenya has undertaken major socio-economic programmes that include the Women’s Enterprise Fund, the Youth Enterprise Fund and the Uwezo Fund, which have enabled women to access funds for starting or growing their business ventures without the burden of collaterals.

Kenya has also achieved almost 90 per cent of girls who complete primary education and has recorded an 89.5 per cent primary completion rate for girls as well as higher transition rates to secondary school.

For society to experience progress, girls and women need their entitled equal opportunities.