Mother arrested for having daughters' genitals cut

A woman was arrested Wednesday in Tharaka-Nithi for forcing her 12-year-old twin girls to undergo the ‘cut’.  

County Commissioner Muzne Abdullatif said her office received a tip off from officers working with Plan International, a non-governmental organisation, that the two girls had undergone the ‘cut’.

Ms Abdullatif said the girls, who were circumcised two weeks ago, were placed in a safe shelter.  

The mother of the girls, who declined to disclose the circumciser, said she made her girls to undergo the ‘cut’ so as to avoid a family.  

“My dead great grandfather left a curse compelling all girls in his lineage to undergo the cut. If girls do not get the cut they go mad,” the woman said.

She said girls allegedly had started developing some mental complications but recovered immediately they were circumcised.

She said that she had made her older four daughters to undergo the ‘cut’ to avoid the curse.

“I have to choose between death and circumcising them,” she said.

The woman is being held at Chuka Police Station.