Kisii County has the highest prevalence of medicalised FGM with some 90 per cent of the cuts performed by health workers with nurses/midwives accounting for the largest number.
The shocking revelations were brought to the fore by a report by the Kenya Obstetrical and Gynaecological Society heavily implicated health workers as perpetrators of female genital mutilation (FGM).
The report indicated the medics are secretly helping parents to have their daughters circumcised.
Other hotspots are Narok, Kajiado, Elgeyo-Marakwet, Samburu, Mandera, Marsabit, Wajir, Garissa and Baringo.
Among the communities, FGM prevalence is estimated at 93.6 per cent among the Somali, Samburu (86 per cent) Kisii (84.4 per cent) Wardei (82 per cent) and between 80 per cent and 74 per cent among the Pokot, Kuria, Rendile, Maasai, Marakwet and Orma.
Dr Benjamin Odongo, the society’s president said medicalisation of FGM is a great concern that should be treated with great urgency before it reverses the milestones made in mother and child health.
“While medicalised FGM is perceived to be less risky, it also promotes the false belief that the procedure is medically beneficial or acceptable. Furthermore, some of the current FGM is being performed on infants or newborns,” Kenya Obstetrical and Gynaecological Society President Dr Odongo has said.
The experts noted that the medicalised cut is even higher in urban settings at 28 per cent with major targets being newborns. However, the regulator, Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Board, is yet to act on the matter.
Dr Odongo expressed concern that the illegal procedure, referred to as medicalisation of FGM, is increasingly being performed by medical practitioners in clinical settings, moving away from untrained, traditional cutters.
About 20 per cent of the 9.3 million women and girls who have undergone FGM across the country, had the procedure done, ironically, by healthcare workers, who understand the risks, said the report still under compilation by the society’s secretariat.