Get Circumcised, Mungiki Sect Tells Women

The East African Standard (Nairobi)/April 23, 2002
By David Kanja

Members of the Mungiki sect in some parts of Kiambu district have issued a three-month ultimatum to all women between 13 and 65 years who have not undergone circumcision to do so.

The sect members have given women in parts of Kikuyu and Kiambaa divisions until July 7, commonly known as Sabasaba, to undergo the Kikuyu customary exercise failure to which they will perform it by force.

In a one page leaflet circulating in the two divisions and authored by unnamed sect members, they have vowed that the exercise must go on to mark Sabasaba celebrations

At the same time the Government yesterday ordered a crackdown on authors and distributors of the leaflets.

Kikuyu District Officer, Patrick Kaunda Maikara, directed police to raid all centres named in the document.

He told a public meeting at Nyathuna trading centre in Kikuyu that the Government will not allow anybody to scare or threaten women.

The leaflets said that the operations will start at PCEA dominated areas of Mai-a-ihii, Gikambura, Kanyethi and Kangemi.

Those are the areas on which Christian missionaries from Scotland settled when they arrived in Kenya in mid 1850s.