Meet the remarkable woman who escaped genital mutilation as a girl – and is now saving thousands of youngsters

Nice Nailantei Leng’ete will never forget the first time ‘cutting season’ came around in her Kenyan village. She and her elder sister Soila ran away and hid in a tree all night. It was dark and they were petrified. They were just eight and 10 years old. “‘We have to run, it will be worth it,’ I said to my sister,” Ms Leng’ete, now 27, told i. “I was scared.

I was thinking, will they find me there and force me to go through FGM [Female genital mutilation]? I was worried that I might die, or if I did not die I would not be able to go back to school and I would be married.” For Maasai families, the cutting ceremony is a celebration that’s considered a necessary part of raising a girl, and a way to prepare her for adulthood and marriage.


Read full article here.

Cookies

We distinguish the following types of cookies based on their purposes:

  • Essential/ Strictly Necessary Cookies:

    These cookies are necessary to enable the website to function and cannot be disabled in our systems. They are usually set in response to actions made by you, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in, or filling out forms. They are essential for effective communication and facilitate navigation (for example, returning to a previous page, etc.).

  • Non-Essential Cookies:

    These cookies are not essential for the website to function, but they help us provide an improved and personalized website experience.

    • » Functional cookies:

      These cookies enable the website to offer enhanced functionality and personalization. They can be set by us or by external partners whose services we have added to our pages.

    • » Analytical cookies:

      These cookies allow us to track visits and traffic, enabling us to measure and improve the performance of our website. They help us understand which pages are the most and least popular and how visitors navigate the site.

    • » Targeting / advertising / marketing cookies:

      These cookies may be set through our website by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant advertisements on other sites.

We utilize both our own cookies and cookies from carefully selected partners with whom we collaborate.


Want to know more?

Take a look at our Cookie policy and our Privacy policy .

This website uses cookies to store settings and collect statistics. If you click the "Allow all" button, you are giving us permission to use all cookie types.

If you want more detailed information or to be able to set your own preferences, please use the "Customize" button.
Cookie image