"She is Our Voice" Supporting Dr Tatu Kamau
Tax deductible
Support SiA Magazine’s coverage of Dr. Tatu Kamau versus the Government of Kenya in the first ever challenge to Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) legislation in Africa.
Who is Dr. Tatu Kamau and Why Support Her?
Dr. Kamau is a former senior official at the Ministry of Health in Kenya who is contesting the constitutionality of the FGM law. A Kikuyu by tribe, Dr. Kamau recognizes that most women in her majority ethnic group in Kenya have abandoned the tradition of female circumcision; as a young Kikuyu woman she did not undergo the tradition. However, as a medical practitioner, Dr. Kamau never encountered the plethora of problems supposedly associated with female circumcision among numerous of her patients from circumcising communities. Therefore, she supports the right of adult women in her own and other ethnic groups to choose whether to abandon or to uphold female circumcision. She believes that the FGM law in Kenya is unconstitutional because the ban ostensibly includes adult women consenting to female circumcision.
We know that the odds are stacked against Dr. Kamau - anti-FGM campaigning is a lucrative, multimillion dollar global aid industry - but we believe in the struggle for bodily autonomy, self-determination, religious freedom, and gender equality on OUR terms as African or Muslim women.
All Women are Free to Choose!
Can you imagine adult white women in western liberal democracies being jailed for undergoing labiaplasty, clitoral reductions or piercings, vaginal rejuvenation or other forms of so-called female genital cosmetic surgeries, for getting breast implants, or injecting their faces with botox and other harmful chemical fillers? Think about the current struggle facing liberals in the US to preserve Roe vs. Wade and women's constitutional right to an abortion because supporters say it's a woman's body and she has the right to choose?
If it's not okay to infringe on the rights of white, western women (and all men around the world) to choose what to do with their own bodies or genitalia (whether due to social pressures, religion, hygiene, or cultural aesthetics) then it is NOT okay to deny adult African and Muslim women the same rights and bodily autonomy when it comes to female circumcision.
In the U.S., unlike Kenya, it's certainly not okay to discriminate: Adult women have the right to choose female circumcision or female genital cosmetic surgery or an abortion - whatever the aversions others may have to these practices. And, just recently, the US Federal FGM Law was declared unconstitutional by a District Court Judge in Detroit, Michigan. Sure, the public reasons given were legal technicalities concerning jurisdiction. However, we are confident that US lawmakers are aware that defending the FGM law would bring into question the constitutionality of male circumcision and, secondarily, raise doubts about parallel forms of so-called female genital cosmetic surgeries that are legally performed on white underage girls with parental consent.
SiA Magazine is the first publication that deals mainly with female circumcision around the world.
We represent proudly circumcised, normal, healthy, sexually confident and accomplished women worldwide who reject the terminology Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). We also employ and collaborate with women in our communities who respect an adult woman's right to choose female circumcision but have decided to personally abandon this physical aspect of our tradition. We are sharing our experiences and learning from one another about ways to improve these practices, negotiate issues of consent and advocate for our sisters who may want to opt out. For details on the definition and different types of female circumcision and how female circumcision differs from FGM as well as other Q&A please visit our website below.
FGM Campaigns, Policies and Laws target and discriminate against circumcised African and Muslim women
We are concerned that global Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) campaigns, laws and policies discriminate against the vast majority of circumcised women who do not see or experience ourselves as mutilated. For instance, millions of women around the world including Kenya, view Islamic female circumcision as a religious obligation equal to male circumcision.
Also millions of women across the Sahara belt from the west to east coast of Africa, view female circumcision as a cultural and socioreligious obligation that confers gender identity and ensures gender equality and complementarity with male circumcision within our traditional social structures. In Kenya, minority ethnic groups such as the Masaai, Marakwet, and Sabiny who also inhabit Uganda, Tanzania and parts of Sudan, female circumcision is an important part of the matriarchal rites of passage marking the status of wife, mother and cultivator that is parallel with male circumcision and initiation, which transforms young men to husbands and warriors. To understand more about female initiation, circumcision and matriarchal power visit our website or contact us.
In the precolonial past, female circumcision was performed for the most part at early stages of adulthood, just prior to marriage, as was male circumcision. Today, both female and male circumcision are still requirements for full adulthood and marriage for both sexes equally under our local customary laws and tradition.
For the past fifty plus years, well financed anti-FGM campaigns - often relying on sensationalized, random internet images of dirty razor blades, screaming women, girls and even babies being held down etc. - have created a false metanarrative about female circumcision as "mutilation" or a form of sexual oppression and extreme violence against girls and women.
These images of FGM - as a barbaric, sadistic, patriarchal maiming of girls and women to deprive us of sexual enjoyment - do not remotely reflect the personal experiences of the vast majority of us affected women or the deeply felt matriarchal aspects of our societies that recognize the inherent right and capacity of women to sexual pleasure and, yes, orgasm. Yes, we've said it, most circumcised women enjoy sex and have orgasms as much, if not more, than our compassionate sisters outside of our traditions who mourn for us!
Through their influence over the global media, western governments and donor agencies, the mainly white female FGM campaign financiers and strategists succeed in silencing the voices of the vast majority of circumcised women around the world who oppose their views. Only those few women in our communities who are willing to echo or champion the FGM narrative about female circumcision or declare that they are victims or survivors of FGM are given a voice in mainstream media. The FGM donor industrial complex deliberately ignores years of dispassionate, independent medical evidence that challenge its dominant narrative about the purported physical and psychosexual harm of female circumcision practices.
This false FGM narrative has impacted circumcised women equally around the world including Muslim and South Asian practitioners of the mildest forms of female circumcision. Khatna, which is a barely visible nicking of the clitoral foreskin, is far less invasive than male circumcision that is also practiced in these communities, yet we have seen the prosecution of Muslim and Asian women in the U.S. and Australia for upholding this custom. No circumcised woman, whatever her religion, however light her complexion or minimal her procedure is immune from the persecution and stigma of anti-FGM campaigns.
This is why all circumcised women need to put aside our artificial differences in race, history, religion, culture, nationality, ethnicity and socioeconomic status and join hands across the world. You can do your part today by helping us draw attention to Dr. Tatu Kamau’s struggle to decriminalize adult female circumcision in Kenya.
Why Follow SiA Magazine in Kenya?
Mainstream and social media focus almost exclusively on FGM campaigners and activists, often uncritically repeating a single narrative about purportedly negative sexual and reproductive health consequences as well as women’s subordination or oppression. But the vast majority of circumcised women, like circumcised men and western women who have undergone female genital cosmetic surgery, have not given anyone our permission to refer to or classify our bodies as mutilated. For us, Dr. Kamau is a quiet, humble hero, fighting for our rights to equal dignity and, importantly, to our own voices.
SiA Magazine is collaborating with a Kenyan journalist, Milton Nyakundi, and other Nairobi based reporters and activists to provide special online and social media coverage of the “other side” - the tens of thousands of adult Kenyan women who support female circumcision as an important part of their cultural, ethnic and gender identity. Some of these women have been recently jailed for openly defying the FGM ban in Kenya and getting circumcised as adults.
As an educated woman born and bred in the U.S. who consented to initiation and circumcision as an adult in my own country of heritage, Sierra Leone, I regard this treatment of circumcised women in Kenya - as well as the overall racism, sexism and Islamaphobia of FGM campaigns - unacceptable in the 21st Century.
You can help us now to put an end to the FGM campaign industry and the misuse and abuse of the media, UN Agencies, International Organizations including the African Union as well as transnational NGOs to control and manage the bodies of brown and black adult African and Muslim women!
Support us today in our declaration that #AllWomenareFreetoChoose.
Who is Dr. Tatu Kamau and Why Support Her?
Dr. Kamau is a former senior official at the Ministry of Health in Kenya who is contesting the constitutionality of the FGM law. A Kikuyu by tribe, Dr. Kamau recognizes that most women in her majority ethnic group in Kenya have abandoned the tradition of female circumcision; as a young Kikuyu woman she did not undergo the tradition. However, as a medical practitioner, Dr. Kamau never encountered the plethora of problems supposedly associated with female circumcision among numerous of her patients from circumcising communities. Therefore, she supports the right of adult women in her own and other ethnic groups to choose whether to abandon or to uphold female circumcision. She believes that the FGM law in Kenya is unconstitutional because the ban ostensibly includes adult women consenting to female circumcision.
We know that the odds are stacked against Dr. Kamau - anti-FGM campaigning is a lucrative, multimillion dollar global aid industry - but we believe in the struggle for bodily autonomy, self-determination, religious freedom, and gender equality on OUR terms as African or Muslim women.
All Women are Free to Choose!
Can you imagine adult white women in western liberal democracies being jailed for undergoing labiaplasty, clitoral reductions or piercings, vaginal rejuvenation or other forms of so-called female genital cosmetic surgeries, for getting breast implants, or injecting their faces with botox and other harmful chemical fillers? Think about the current struggle facing liberals in the US to preserve Roe vs. Wade and women's constitutional right to an abortion because supporters say it's a woman's body and she has the right to choose?
If it's not okay to infringe on the rights of white, western women (and all men around the world) to choose what to do with their own bodies or genitalia (whether due to social pressures, religion, hygiene, or cultural aesthetics) then it is NOT okay to deny adult African and Muslim women the same rights and bodily autonomy when it comes to female circumcision.
In the U.S., unlike Kenya, it's certainly not okay to discriminate: Adult women have the right to choose female circumcision or female genital cosmetic surgery or an abortion - whatever the aversions others may have to these practices. And, just recently, the US Federal FGM Law was declared unconstitutional by a District Court Judge in Detroit, Michigan. Sure, the public reasons given were legal technicalities concerning jurisdiction. However, we are confident that US lawmakers are aware that defending the FGM law would bring into question the constitutionality of male circumcision and, secondarily, raise doubts about parallel forms of so-called female genital cosmetic surgeries that are legally performed on white underage girls with parental consent.
SiA Magazine is the first publication that deals mainly with female circumcision around the world.
We represent proudly circumcised, normal, healthy, sexually confident and accomplished women worldwide who reject the terminology Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). We also employ and collaborate with women in our communities who respect an adult woman's right to choose female circumcision but have decided to personally abandon this physical aspect of our tradition. We are sharing our experiences and learning from one another about ways to improve these practices, negotiate issues of consent and advocate for our sisters who may want to opt out. For details on the definition and different types of female circumcision and how female circumcision differs from FGM as well as other Q&A please visit our website below.
FGM Campaigns, Policies and Laws target and discriminate against circumcised African and Muslim women
We are concerned that global Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) campaigns, laws and policies discriminate against the vast majority of circumcised women who do not see or experience ourselves as mutilated. For instance, millions of women around the world including Kenya, view Islamic female circumcision as a religious obligation equal to male circumcision.
Also millions of women across the Sahara belt from the west to east coast of Africa, view female circumcision as a cultural and socioreligious obligation that confers gender identity and ensures gender equality and complementarity with male circumcision within our traditional social structures. In Kenya, minority ethnic groups such as the Masaai, Marakwet, and Sabiny who also inhabit Uganda, Tanzania and parts of Sudan, female circumcision is an important part of the matriarchal rites of passage marking the status of wife, mother and cultivator that is parallel with male circumcision and initiation, which transforms young men to husbands and warriors. To understand more about female initiation, circumcision and matriarchal power visit our website or contact us.
In the precolonial past, female circumcision was performed for the most part at early stages of adulthood, just prior to marriage, as was male circumcision. Today, both female and male circumcision are still requirements for full adulthood and marriage for both sexes equally under our local customary laws and tradition.
For the past fifty plus years, well financed anti-FGM campaigns - often relying on sensationalized, random internet images of dirty razor blades, screaming women, girls and even babies being held down etc. - have created a false metanarrative about female circumcision as "mutilation" or a form of sexual oppression and extreme violence against girls and women.
These images of FGM - as a barbaric, sadistic, patriarchal maiming of girls and women to deprive us of sexual enjoyment - do not remotely reflect the personal experiences of the vast majority of us affected women or the deeply felt matriarchal aspects of our societies that recognize the inherent right and capacity of women to sexual pleasure and, yes, orgasm. Yes, we've said it, most circumcised women enjoy sex and have orgasms as much, if not more, than our compassionate sisters outside of our traditions who mourn for us!
Through their influence over the global media, western governments and donor agencies, the mainly white female FGM campaign financiers and strategists succeed in silencing the voices of the vast majority of circumcised women around the world who oppose their views. Only those few women in our communities who are willing to echo or champion the FGM narrative about female circumcision or declare that they are victims or survivors of FGM are given a voice in mainstream media. The FGM donor industrial complex deliberately ignores years of dispassionate, independent medical evidence that challenge its dominant narrative about the purported physical and psychosexual harm of female circumcision practices.
This false FGM narrative has impacted circumcised women equally around the world including Muslim and South Asian practitioners of the mildest forms of female circumcision. Khatna, which is a barely visible nicking of the clitoral foreskin, is far less invasive than male circumcision that is also practiced in these communities, yet we have seen the prosecution of Muslim and Asian women in the U.S. and Australia for upholding this custom. No circumcised woman, whatever her religion, however light her complexion or minimal her procedure is immune from the persecution and stigma of anti-FGM campaigns.
This is why all circumcised women need to put aside our artificial differences in race, history, religion, culture, nationality, ethnicity and socioeconomic status and join hands across the world. You can do your part today by helping us draw attention to Dr. Tatu Kamau’s struggle to decriminalize adult female circumcision in Kenya.
Why Follow SiA Magazine in Kenya?
Mainstream and social media focus almost exclusively on FGM campaigners and activists, often uncritically repeating a single narrative about purportedly negative sexual and reproductive health consequences as well as women’s subordination or oppression. But the vast majority of circumcised women, like circumcised men and western women who have undergone female genital cosmetic surgery, have not given anyone our permission to refer to or classify our bodies as mutilated. For us, Dr. Kamau is a quiet, humble hero, fighting for our rights to equal dignity and, importantly, to our own voices.
SiA Magazine is collaborating with a Kenyan journalist, Milton Nyakundi, and other Nairobi based reporters and activists to provide special online and social media coverage of the “other side” - the tens of thousands of adult Kenyan women who support female circumcision as an important part of their cultural, ethnic and gender identity. Some of these women have been recently jailed for openly defying the FGM ban in Kenya and getting circumcised as adults.
As an educated woman born and bred in the U.S. who consented to initiation and circumcision as an adult in my own country of heritage, Sierra Leone, I regard this treatment of circumcised women in Kenya - as well as the overall racism, sexism and Islamaphobia of FGM campaigns - unacceptable in the 21st Century.
You can help us now to put an end to the FGM campaign industry and the misuse and abuse of the media, UN Agencies, International Organizations including the African Union as well as transnational NGOs to control and manage the bodies of brown and black adult African and Muslim women!
Support us today in our declaration that #AllWomenareFreetoChoose.
Organizer
Fuambai Sia Ahmadu
Organizer
Bethesda, MD
awafc
Beneficiary