For Catherine Mootian, the scales of justice have always felt dangerously unbalanced. As a survivor of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in Kenya and the director of the non-governmental organization AfyAfrica, she has spent years navigating the complex aftermath of a practice that the world largely condemns but continues to struggle to eliminate. While the international community often measures progress by the number of arrests made or the passing of new legislation, Mootian argues that these metrics ignore the most vital participant in the equation: the survivor.
“When perpetrators are taken to court, that is important,” Mootian explains, her voice carrying the weight of decades of advocacy. “But what happens to the girl who was cut? Who supports her healing, her education, her future?” Her questions highlight a glaring gap in the global response to gender-based violence. For millions of women and girls, the formal prohibition of FGM is merely a starting point, not the finish line. True justice, in their eyes, is a holistic ecosystem that includes psychological protection, specialized medical care, social reintegration, and the dismantling of the cultural pressures that made the act possible in the first place.
The reality of life after the cut is a narrative often buried under statistics. The physical damage is immediate, but the psychological and social ramifications can last a lifetime, creating a cycle of trauma that laws alone are ill-equipped to break.
In many communities across East Africa and beyond, FGM is not viewed through the lens of a human rights violation, but as a prerequisite for social survival. Young girls do not undergo the procedure because they believe in its medical or spiritual necessity; rather, they do so because the alternative is total social excommunication. In these environments, being “cut” is synonymous with being “marriageable.” To refuse is to forfeit one’s right to security, economic stability, and a sense of belonging within the tribe or family.
Tony Mwebia, the director of the Kenya-based organization Men End FGM, understands this dynamic intimately. He argues that the practice is sustained by a silent contract between men. “Men are not just bystanders,” Mwebia notes. “They are the ones expected to marry. They negotiate dowry. They decide what is acceptable. If men continue to expect women to be cut, the practice will continue even if it is illegal.”
Mwebia’s work focuses on the “silent compliance” of the modern man. He observes that while many younger men claim to oppose FGM in principle, they often buckle when faced with the weight of tradition. When a father refuses to grant cattle for a dowry or elders insist on the purity of tradition, silence becomes a form of endorsement. Campaigns like Men End FGM seek to break this cycle by encouraging men to publicly reject the expectation that a woman must be mutilated to be respected. By changing the “marriage market” requirements, they hope to remove the primary incentive that drives families to continue the practice in secret.
The limitations of the law are nowhere more apparent than in Kenya, where FGM has been banned for over a decade. Despite the threat of imprisonment, enforcement is a patchwork of success and failure. In regions where social pressure remains absolute, families have become adept at circumventing the authorities. “You cannot arrest your way out of FGM,” Mwebia insists. When the social incentives remain untouched, the practice simply goes underground—moving across borders, occurring in the middle of the night, or being performed on younger infants who cannot speak out.
Catherine Mootian’s own story serves as a harrowing testament to how even the most “protected” girls can fall victim to tradition. Despite growing up in an educated household—her father was a medical doctor—she was not spared. At the age of 12, in the heart of Kenya’s Maasai community, Mootian and her sisters were ambushed.
“We were woken up at three o’clock; men were in our room,” she recalls. The confusion and terror of that night remain vivid. There was no explanation, no comfort, only the command to shower with freezing water. “The next thing we realized, they removed the surgery blades. And yes… we were cut.”
The trauma of that morning did not dissipate with the healing of the physical wounds. It transformed into a decades-long struggle with shame and self-censorship. While her peers at school spoke of their circumcision as a rite of passage into womanhood, Mootian retreated into herself. She describes a life lived in the shadows of fear, constantly hiding a part of her identity that she didn’t know how to process. Even at the university level, the stigma followed her. Men would ask if she was cut, fueled by myths that such women were “abnormal” or lacked sexual feelings.
The physical consequences of FGM often resurface during the most vulnerable moments of a woman’s life: pregnancy and childbirth. For Mootian, the trauma was revisited with the birth of her children. The scarring from the procedure made natural birth impossible, forcing her to undergo multiple Caesarean sections. For many other survivors who lack access to modern surgical care, the results are far grimmer, leading to obstetric fistulas, chronic infections, or maternal death.
The stakes are, quite literally, life and death. A 2023 study spanning 15 countries revealed a terrifying statistic: a girl dies every 12 minutes due to complications from FGM. These deaths are the result of immediate hemorrhaging, sepsis, or the long-term health failures that stem from the original trauma. FGM is not just a cultural practice; it is a global public health emergency.
Today, Mootian is turning her pain into a platform for change through AfyAfrica, an organization based in Narok and led by survivors. Her mission began at home: “The first person I protected was my younger sister. I promised myself no other girl from my village would go through what I did.”
AfyAfrica provides something that the legal system cannot: a safe space for the soul. It took Mootian 23 years to speak her truth aloud, and she now facilitates that same healing for others. However, the scale of the need is staggering. In her county alone, there are over 500 known survivors and only three government-employed psychologists. Without sustained funding for counseling and recovery, Mootian warns that survivors are effectively left to carry their burdens alone, regardless of what the law says.
The fragility of legal protections is currently being tested in The Gambia. After banning FGM in 2015, the nation saw a massive backlash in 2024 when lawmakers attempted to repeal the prohibition. While that legislative effort was defeated following intense pressure from UN Women and international human rights groups, the threat has now moved to the judiciary. In January 2026, religious leaders and a member of parliament brought a case before The Gambia’s Supreme Court, arguing that the ban violates constitutional and religious freedoms.
If the Supreme Court were to overturn the ban, it would set a devastating precedent for the region. It would signal to survivors that their bodily autonomy is secondary to traditionalist interpretations of the law. As the case continues, it serves as a stark reminder that access to justice is not a permanent achievement but a constant battle.
Organizations like UN Women remain at the center of this fight, working to ensure that progress is not rolled back. Their strategy is three-fold: strengthening the legal framework to prevent FGM, supporting the grassroots organizations that provide safe havens for girls, and maintaining international pressure on governments to uphold their human rights obligations.
Ultimately, the goal is a definition of justice that is as deep as the trauma it seeks to heal. As Catherine Mootian concludes, the imprisonment of a perpetrator is a hollow victory if the survivor is left broken. “If we want justice, we must make sure both sides are catered for. That means psychosocial support, education, and the support women need to heal and achieve their dreams.” For the girl who was woken at three in the morning by the glint of a blade, justice isn’t just a law on a piece of paper—it is the freedom to live without fear, the resources to heal, and the right to a future that is entirely her own.
