This archive report was first published on 8 November 2019.
On November 8, 2019, community elders and religious leaders from across Kenya gathered at State House, Nairobi, to pledge their commitment to ending Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) by 2022.
The leaders, representing 22 counties most affected by FGM, made the commitment in support of President Uhuru Kenyatta's declaration to eradicate the practice in the country by 2022.
"We appreciate the government's efforts to end FGM through creating and implementing progressive policies and legislative frameworks and programmes towards its eradication," said Njuri Ncheke Secretary-General Josephat Murangiri, who read the elders' declaration.
President Kenyatta thanked the elders and religious leaders for agreeing to lead the onslaught against the retrogressive practice and assured them of the government's backing.
"FGM is a retrogressive practice whose continued existence in our country, in actual fact, assaults our individual and our national consciousness," he said at the ceremony that was used to launch the national policy on the eradication of FGM.
"The practice is inimical to our shared fundamental values as enshrined in our very own constitution that we as Kenyans passed," he added.
The President called on Kenyans to shun destructive practices such as FGM and embrace progressive cultural activities that bestow honour and dignity on women and girls.
"A time comes when one gets exposed to newer ways of life. It is time therefore for all of us to discard retrogressive cultures for the benefit of the nation," the Head of State said.
