How girl rescued from marriage after FGM topped national exam

Rosilla Lenanyokie (with beads around her neck) and Dr Josephine Kulea at Maralal police station in 2012 when she was rescued from an early marriage from a 42-year-old man as a third wife.

A tearful Sadia Hussein, a Tana River FGM survivor, also testified about how she was circumcised by her own grandmother while 10 other women held her down on the ground.

However, complications began to emerge in 2008, when she was in excruciating pain giving birth to her daughter, which marked her transformation.

Ijaara MP Sophi Abdi Noor, who also went through the cut, said having a medical practitioner petition to legalise the act is an insult to the efforts made thus far.

Samburu (86%), Somali (93%), Kisii (84%), and Masai (84%) are among the counties with the highest percentages.

"With age, the proportion of circumcised women rises. Muslim women (51%) are more likely than other religious women to have been circumcised.

According to Josephine Kulea, director of the Samburu Girls Foundation, Lenanyokie lost her mother when she was six years old and married a man who was old enough to be her grandfather.

"I found her selling raw milk on the streets of Maralal town. She'd been living with her husband for a week. She told me she wanted to flee but didn't know where to go," Dr Kulea said on Saturday during a meeting at the centre to celebrate the exam results.

She took her to Maralal police station where the incident was reported at the children's desk before she was allowed to move to the rescue centre.

Lenanyokie is looking forward to joining a university in Canada to study software engineering and cyber security.

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