Abandon the Knife - Kenya

Finalist at this year's Rory Peck Awards

To see more go to http://www.youtube.com/user/journeymanpictures

Follow us on Facebook (http://goo.gl/YRw42) or Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/journeymanvod)

In Kenya, young girls are starting to fight back against a brutal rite of passage; female circumcision. This remarkable film captures their struggle, laying bare the complex issues at the heart of the debate.

Nancy is a 17-year-old Kenyan girl about to face a brutal transition to womanhood. "My parents are putting pressure on me to get cut, but I am refusing". In the local community of Pokot, female circumcision has been entrenched in the traditions of its people for generations. Yet Nancy is bright, ambitious, wants an education and is determined to break this cycle of pain that is so often a prerequisite for marriage. Girls like Nancy and Gertrude have not only begun to resist this cruel practice but have started to change perceptions and shatter taboos that have brutalised women for generations. As a result attitudes amongst men are also slowly beginning to change: "Now we are modern. I'm going to marry an uncircumcised woman".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/video/2011/apr/15/kenya-genital-...

Produced By Guardian Films
Distributed By Journeyman Pictures
May 2011

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Kenya
• Female
• Circumcision
• Pressure
• Debate
• Pokot
• Tradition
• Ritual
• Taboo
• Young
• Women
• Journeyman
• Pictures

[WullopPornruangwong]

May all people be free from pain like this. May all people can go to schools. May the sufferers be relieved. May all cruelty disappears.

[TheAnswerIverson3]

This is DISGUSTING and WRONG.

Dont give me any "oh who are you to judge, this is their culture crap" this is just

Wrong!.

[Yesica1993]

@Idonteatdog Sadly true.

[Idonteatdog]

@Yesica1993 the western feminists are more worried about their own frivolity than about anything serious.

[cocoboy308]

It amazes me how westerners only broadcast indeginious African traditions when they go to Africa. They never showcase the financial world or the upper middle class over there, they just spotlight the poverty and the taboo considered practices by the west.

[jendeh1000]

Fuck this, I got 6 mins into it, and I am too sad.



[markmywords53]

I take your point that the circumcision procedure came too late to save some of these girls. What I take from this is that the cutting should come a lot earlier in their lives, and if it is infibulation they are getting, they should be sewn tighter.

It is good that you have kept pure. Assuming that you have not been circumcised, this is worthy of high praise. How old are you, and are you now married?

[paisleyyama]

@markmy I think you`re mistaken. If you listen again to the video some VERY young girls getting cut are already sexually active b/c they already have AIDS & other sexual diseases before they`re cut so obviously Kenyans don`t find premarital sex as disgusting as you suggest. On the other hand I`m from a Western country & I NEVER participated in premarital/extramarital sex or masterbation & I`m not preoccupied w/orgasm. Sexual sins come from the heart not the physical body.

[paisleyyama]

I thought only muslims did this. I understand they`re poor but w/out any cows they are surviving & doing fine so why torture their daughter in exchange for a cow! Is that all their daughter is worth to them? Are the parents this greedy that they choose a cow over their daughter? & the other dad is concerned about men laughing at him for not getting BEER b/c he didn`t mutilate his daughter. What sort of a dad is this?

[Yesica1993]

It was good to see parents listening to reason and having a change of heart on this issue! Obviously, only time will tell if they are sincere and will stick to it. But it gives me hope. So often I am told that talking to people in order to change their mind about any issue is pointless. I have never believed that it is pointless! I believe that people - even entire communities - CAN change. Here is proof!

I hope there is a follow up. I would love to know what has happened to these girls.

[Yesica1993]

The silence of Western feminists on this issue is deafening.

God bless those courageous girls like Nancy and Gertrude and all those who fight against this barbarism, at the risk of losing everything!

[GreenPrimitivist]

@tybash Thanks! :)