KENYA: Wife sends whole village to publicly cut husband

Diaspora Messenger (Kenya)
January 17, 2015

Wife sends a whole village to circumcise her husband in broad daylight

A man was forcefully circumcised in Chwele Market Bungoma county after his wife reported him to the elders.

A 39-year-old man woke up to the shock of his life when he found thousands of people gathered outside his house waiting to circumcise him.

The father of 11 is said to have had an argument with his wife when she decided to go and expose him to the elders on his state of manhood.

He was drugged out of his house and circumcised in front of a large multitude in Chwele market.

He was later awarded gifts and is expected to stay in isolation for four months before elders teach him on how to be a man, according to the Bukusu culture.

Social media was awash with critics some condemning the act while other praised the act under #GoCutMyHusband

KENYA: 200 flee forced circumcision

Pangea Today
August 20, 2014

Over 200 men seek protection against forced circumcision

The annual circumcision season for the Bukusu ethnic community in western Kenya usually brings a festive atmosphere.

This year, however, at least a dozen adult males from three neighboring tribes that don’t practice the rite have been allegedly put to the knife by force since the start of the season in early August.

This has led to more than 200 of their fellow-tribesmen from the Turkana, Teso and Luo communities seeking refuge at a police station in an effort to avoid the same fate.

The police have agreed to provide them with security so they can go back to their homes unscathed.
Circumcision remains a highly polarizing issue among many ethnic groups in Kenya and Africa in general.

Despite this, it is not uncommon to find areas where practicing and non-practicing tribes share land and happily co-habit regardless of their differences in opinion over such customs and traditions.

As per Kenya’s Bukusu tribal custom, all men should be circumcised because it signifies the passage from childhood to adulthood.

However, David Ekai, one of those who were forcibly circumcised, says that the practice goes against his own ancestral tradition and that people should not be forced to undergo it.

The Bukusu are a sub-tribe of the Luhya community, the second-largest ethnic group in Kenya.

When a member of a nearby non-circumcising ethnic community marries a Bukusu woman, he may be “convinced” to be circumcised at the request of his Bukusu wife and in-laws.

Earlier story

UGANDA: Museveni wants "old style" circumcision shunned

ComesaRIA
August 20, 2014

Museveni Wants 'Old Style' Circumcision Shunned

by John Nalianya
Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni has told the Bukusu and Bagisu tribes living in Kenya and Uganda to shun the old style of undergoing circumcision.

Museveni said while his government respected diverse culture, the two communities should break loose from the old retrogressive cultures.

"While we support you in keeping your culture find ways of trying to modernize this culture in tandem with the changing times ,"said Museveni.

Museveni said the traditional circumcision ceremony among the two communities had only promoted prostitution. He warned the tribes over myths that circumcised men could not contract the Aids virus.

"Stop lying to people on this traditional myths that people who are circumcised have low chances of being infected with Aids. You will die," he said.

Museveni was speaking at Namboboto shrines in Mbale, Eastern Uganda where he presided over the launch of the Bagisu circumcision ceremony popularly known as "Imbalu".

The ceremony that was attended by over ten Ugandan ministers, a host members of parliament and the Kenyan delegation led by Bungoma governor Kenneth Lusaka saw over ten [sic] boys circumcised.

Museveni who hails from Banyakonle tribe of Western Uganda, that don't undergo the cut, called on the elite from Bagisu and Bukusu communities to be in the forefront in encouraging the communities to shun the old culture.

...

Museveni said some of the bad old culture practiced by the two communities have made the two communities lives poor.

"Let's focus on the cultures that will create jobs for our children and improve our standards of living," said Museveni.

KENYA: Traditional circumcision infringes rights

Standard Digital News
September 1, 2012

A clash of cultural practices and the enjoyment of civil liberties

By Henry Wasilwa
Among the Bukusu, in western Kenya, a young male child is obliged by customary practice, to undergo the traditional circumcision. It is taboo to cringe, flee or show open fear of the cut and that the entire family is ostracised if the initiate fails to withstand the cut as expected.

A recent occurrence that was featured in The Standard On Saturday, brings to the fore the choice between complying with this painful cultural practices and the enjoyment of civil liberties such as freedom from forceful or harmful practices.

Article 25 of the Constitution ensures that certain human rights can never be modified, limited or affected by anything not even custom or tradition, and it protects every person’s freedom from torture and cruelty, and proscribes inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; In the hierarchy of laws, custom or traditional practices rank way below constitutional edicts, statutory imperatives, subsidiary legislation, and the common law. Any custom that abridges, diminishes, or in any way impinges on the right to life and limb, is at once repugnant to the Constitution for violating the higher element of the human rights set out in Article 25 of the Constitution.

Initiation in the manner prescribed by Bukusu custom might have been designed to compel the subject to undergo a process of pain, and perseverance, ostensibly to celebrate the symbolic transition from adolescence into adulthood. The manner prescribed for managing the resultant wound was by application of the leaves from a traditional herb known as “enguu” or in some Luhya dialects, “ingwe” thought to be an antiseptic; and any swelling on the organ is to be relieved by puncturing the swollen membrane with the means of some thorny flower called “namusuni” named after the tiny red breasted bird that suckles the flower’s nectar.

Others would use the horrifying mandibles of a live ant known for its vicious bite to puncture any septic part of the organ and in the process release any septic fluid. This would impart the most excruciating pain imaginable to the septic part of the initiate and in Bukusu custom, such pain depicted bravery and brawn in the initiate anything else is considered woolly.

I asked an elder why this practice and he said it prepared an initiate on how to consciously process and accept, deprivation, deal with inconvenience, extreme conditions of weather, and how to emerge from the horror of direct pain to the body. Perhaps these were useful attributes for men in the days of hunters and gatherers because the process of securing food and subsistence was fraught with danger, pain, deprivation and inconvenience.

Any utilitative purpose that such practice might have served, can no longer be justified in a market economy in which the dangerous hunting moors have now been replaced by supermarkets, the stock exchange and other platforms of accessing basic human livelihood and succour.

Any benefits that circumcision delivers can be obtained by humane, clinically efficient and hygienic means in a hospital, without taking away the core benefit, if any. With so many practical reasons falling away, it is now difficult to defend this system of removal of the foreskin.

The young hapless lad of the Baala clan, recently featured, wailing and screaming in horror during his forceful cut, should consider bringing a petition in any court that his constitutional right to his civil liberties, were flagrantly infringed by his Bukusu customary circumcision. Indeed this young boy could, in theory file a similar petition to obtain compensation for assault, humiliation and the deliberate denigration of his civil rights by his father, clan and the local administration. I believe civil rights groups like the Cradle would snap up and support, such a case.

In the mid seventies when I underwent the traditional cut, I did it voluntarily but had I flunked the test, together with my family, I would have been considered pariah forever.

The writer is advocate of the High Court