IMPERIAL CONCERNS AND ‘WOMEN'S AFFAIRS’: STATE EFFORTS TO REGULATE CLITORIDECTOMY AND ERADICATE ABORTION IN MERU, KENYA, c. 1910–1950

Abstract

During the colonial period, European officers undertook a series of campaigns in conjunction with African officials to regulate the severity of clitoridectomy and to alter the timing of female initiation in Meru, Kenya. While their efforts to ban the more drastic forms of clitoridectomy contributed to the government's stated objective of gradually eliminating the practice, this anti-clitoridectomy stance was compromised by their parallel efforts to enforce female initiation at an earlier age in order to combat abortion. Officers attributed the apparently high prevalence of abortion in Meru to the late age at which clitoridectomy took place. Whereas in other areas of central Kenya female initiation took place prior to puberty, in Meru, it was a pre-nuptial rite. Officers observed that as ‘custom’ prohibited uninitiated females from bearing children, unexcised girls who became pregnant most often obtained abortions. To eliminate the possibility of a girl being sexually mature but unexcised, administrators enforced measures requiring girls to be excised before puberty.

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