Umoja – a women’s commune in northern Kenya.

Three hundred and eighty kilometers north of Nairobi, a clan of Samburu shephers -closely related to the Masai- have assembled in the middle of the savana for the circumcision ceremony of their young.

At sunrise, twenty adolescent boys aged between 12 to 22 undergo the rite of passage that will bring them into the adult world. Close by their sisters and cousins come before the knife as they, too, experience ritual excision. Despite the official ban on female genital mutilation introduced in Kenya since 2001, the girls know that without undergoing the ritual their chances of finding a spouse and getting married would be seriously compromised. In the midst of this, the wife of a local chief protests in vain. Rebecca Lolosoli has been campaigning against the practice of female circumcision, though her pleas fall upon deaf ears. In her forties, the charismatic Lolosoli was invited to the UN to speak on the issue so close to her heart, and happens to be founder of Umoja ( »Unity » in Swahili), a village where the law is in the hands of women…

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• Auteur Photos © Bruno Fert / In Visu / Lightmediation Text ® Christelle Dedebant

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