“I am worth defending,” a group of girls chanted as they each took up a fighting stance.
They were about to practice combat techniques, and no, they are not part of a martial arts club. They are Masai girls living at a boarding school in Transmara in western Kenya, which doubles as a rescue center for teens who have escaped early marriage and female genital mutilation (FGM).
“We learn how to protect ourselves, how to protect our bodies,” said Grace Musheni, 14, who has been living and studying at the Enkakenya Centre for Excellence since 2023.
Photo: AP
The center was set up in 2009 by Kakenya Ntaiya, a Masai woman who was subjected to genital cutting.
It does not just offer a safe haven for girls at risk of early marriage, it also provides a free high-school education as an incentive for parents to allow their daughters to stay in school instead of undergoing the cutting ritual that is still common for Masai girls between the ages of eight and 17.
Once a girl is circumcised, she is considered an adult and ripe for marriage, meaning an abrupt end to childhood and education for many.
“Most child marriages are caused by poverty in families,” Musheni said. “Because of this poverty, you can get that a parent can allow their daughter to be married by an old man — because the family can be paid.”
While Ntaiya was unable to escape genital mutilation, she convinced her father to allow her to continue her education, and she now holds a doctorate in education from the University of Pittsburgh and multiple awards for her work.
“I am a beneficiary of proper education and I really wanted to show my community how important it is to empower women and girls,” she said.
Although Kenyan law prohibits genital mutilation and marriage below age 18, both are still practiced, especially in rural areas where education levels remain low.
The government’s 2022 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey found that 56.3 percent of women with no education had undergone genital mutilation, compared with 5.9 percent of women who had studied past secondary school.
Girls’ education apparently has an effect on gender-based violence, too, with 34 percent of Kenyan women surveyed saying they were victims of physical violence, a figure that drops to 23 percent for women with education.
That is still alarmingly high. So on top of providing education, the Enkakenya Centre partners with I’m Worth Defending to teach combative self-defense skills. It is not so much so that they can physically fight potential abusers — although they could — but it teaches them to be assertive in all areas of their lives.
“We train them with basic principles of assertiveness and boundary setting, which includes verbal and physical techniques,” Amelia Awuor of I’m Worth Defending said. “These skills instill confidence to speak up against violations or fight off physical threats.”
The training gave 14-year-old Rahab Lepishoi power to speak up for other girls. During a recent visit to her older sister, she learned that the girls in the village were about to be circumcised, including an old childhood friend.
“I told her about the dangers of FGM and to come with me to my home to avoid” it, Lepishoi said.
She is following in the footsteps of her educators, who visit remote communities in Transmara every year to raise awareness about genital mutilation, early marriage and the importance of education.
“Now when I go to a place, I apply that skill of assertiveness and confidence. I educate my friends, so that when they meet with a boy, they will be confident and say what they mean,” Lepishoi said.
The self-defense classes also offer some protection against sexual abuse, which can end up trapping many in violent marriages.
“When a girl reports to her parents that she has been abused, it is common for the parents to force the girl to marry the man that abused her,” Musheni said.
Purity Risanoi, 15, has been at the school for five years. Her mother is a widow and raised her five children alone, but cultural pressures from her community remain.
“My family is still very traditional,” she said. “When a girl grows up, she is expected to get married and she cannot choose who to marry.”
Her solution? Keep studying. One day, she wants to be a lawyer.
Meanwhile, Musheni dreams of a career as a software engineer. She wants to come back here and use technology to uplift her community.
“Girls can achieve great things,” she said. “I want to inspire others to chase their dreams.”
Shamans in Peru on Monday gathered for an annual New Year’s ritual where they made predictions for the year to come, including illness for US President Donald Trump and the downfall of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. “The United States should prepare itself because Donald Trump will fall seriously ill,” Juan de Dios Garcia proclaimed as he gathered with other shamans on a beach in southern Lima, dressed in traditional Andean ponchos and headdresses, and sprinkling flowers on the sand. The shamans carried large posters of world leaders, over which they crossed swords and burned incense, some of which they stomped on. In this
Indonesia yesterday began enforcing its newly ratified penal code, replacing a Dutch-era criminal law that had governed the country for more than 80 years and marking a major shift in its legal landscape. Since proclaiming independence in 1945, the Southeast Asian country had continued to operate under a colonial framework widely criticized as outdated and misaligned with Indonesia’s social values. Efforts to revise the code stalled for decades as lawmakers debated how to balance human rights, religious norms and local traditions in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation. The 345-page Indonesian Penal Code, known as the KUHP, was passed in 2022. It
Near the entrance to the Panama Canal, a monument to China’s contributions to the interoceanic waterway was torn down on Saturday night by order of local authorities. The move comes as US President Donald Trump has made threats in the past few months to retake control of the canal, claiming Beijing has too much influence in its operations. In a surprising move that has been criticized by leaders in Panama and China, the mayor’s office of the locality of Arraijan ordered the demolition of the monument built in 2004 to symbolize friendship between the countries. The mayor’s office said in
‘TRUMP’S LONG GAME’: Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said that while fraud was a serious issue, the US president was politicizing it to defund programs for Minnesotans US President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday said it was auditing immigration cases involving US citizens of Somalian origin to detect fraud that could lead to denaturalization, or revocation of citizenship, while also announcing a freeze of childcare funds to Minnesota and demanding an audit of some daycare centers. “Under US law, if an individual procures citizenship on a fraudulent basis, that is grounds for denaturalization,” US Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. Denaturalization cases are rare and can take years. About 11 cases were pursued per year between 1990 and 2017, the Immigrant Legal Resource
RSS