Dr Tatu Kamau, the petitioner in the case seeking to have anti-Female Genital Mutilation laws declared unconstitutional, gives her testimony before a three-judge bench at the Milimani Law Court, at the Nairobi High Court, in Nairobi, on October 24, 2019. (Photo by Stafford Ondego / AFP) (Photo by STAFFORD ONDEGO/AFP via Getty Images)

A female doctor in Kenya wants female genital mutilation to be decriminalized.

Tatu Kamau is asking Kenya’s courts to allow women above the age of 18 to be able to practice female genital mutilation (FGM), saying they have a right to choose what they do to their bodies at that age.

She wants the Kenyan government to annul the Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation Act 2011 and the board set up to enforce the law disbanded.

FGM is widely condemned in the country and across parts of Africa but Kamau argues in a 2017 petition filed against the government, that it is an age-old Kenyan tradition and that an outright ban infringes on a woman’s right to exercise her cultural beliefs.

Kamau is representing herself in the case before the Nairobi High Court. She told judges on Thursday that the term mutilation is “offensive” and denigrates the cultural significance of the practice.

A female doctor in Kenya wants female genital mutilation to be decriminalized.

Tatu Kamau is asking Kenya’s courts to allow women above the age of 18 to be able to practice female genital mutilation (FGM), saying they have a right to choose what they do to their bodies at that age.

She wants the Kenyan government to annul the Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation Act 2011 and the board set up to enforce the law disbanded.

FGM is widely condemned in the country and across parts of Africa but Kamau argues in a 2017 petition filed against the government, that it is an age-old Kenyan tradition and that an outright ban infringes on a woman’s right to exercise her cultural beliefs.

Kamau is representing herself in the case before the Nairobi High Court. She told judges on Thursday that the term mutilation is “offensive” and denigrates the cultural significance of the practice.

 

Source: CNN