The practice is more pronounced as Kenyans and other communities that practice FGM escape the punitive legal restrictions in European countries that prohibit the ritual in all its forms.

Back at home, although the practice is illegal, the laxity of the legal regime allows parents and guardians to have their way without fear of imprisonment, as would have been the case in the countries they have migrated to.

“Even though laws to eradicate FGM exist in most countries, many of these don’t seem to work due to enforcement mechanisms,” notes Colette Dehlot of Women’s Health and Development – Regional Office for Africa (WMH/AFRO) at a workshop organized to discuss legislative and policy interventions to end FGM.

Speaking during the same workshop held in Nairobi, Ms Efua Dorkanoo of the Foundation for Women’s Health Research and Development (FORWARD) gave the example of how Britain has been able to deal with the issue using a joint collaborative approach.

Presenting a paper “Experiences in Child Protection and FGM in African immigrant communities in UK”, she notes,

“In the UK, there is a collaborative approach between the Department of Social Services, Health, Education and the police who all have a responsibility to protect children to ensure that all loopholes are sealed.”

Although the exact numbers of those returning to accomplish this particular rite are not known, those advocating for children rights say the trend is worrying.

The workshop entitled “Protecting Girls from FGM and Harmful Traditional Practices (HTP) – Challenges and Opportunities for Legal Intervention in Africa”, attracted senior professionals and policy makers from government and civil society in the fields spanning from health, human rights, social work and child welfare, education, police and justice system.

The rising number of immigrant communities from ‘FGM countries” into UK and the increasing prevalence of the rite forced Britain to legislate against the practice in 1985 prohibiting all forms of female circumcision.

With the laws tightened, some ethnic minority communities have now found ways of evading the law by arranging for their daughters to have the operation performed abroad.

Consequently, UK has tightened the anti-FGM laws further such that even taking a child to undergo the cut outside the UK is illegal.

Across Europe, mutilation of young girls has forced EU member states to issue tougher measures to allow for prosecution of European residents who take their children to go through the rite abroad.

For many years, most people had believed that Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) was only a problem of developing countries and in particular Africa and the Middle East.

While the problem is more prevalent in Africa, the phenomenon crosses international borders mostly through global immigration, and is now a concern of the countries in the West.

In UK and Australia, for instance, immigrants from countries where the rite is prevalent are known to practice FGM.

In the UK alone, experts believe that close to 74,000 first-generation African immigrant women have undergone FGM with an estimated 7,000 girls at risk of being forced into the procedure.

Even the punitive legal measures seem not to deter them from forcing their daughters to undergo the practice.

The cultural significance behind the practice makes it extremely hard for such communities to discard it.

Among the Kisii and the Kuria community in Kenya for instance, there are social reasons for the cut. For example, an un-cut woman finds it very difficult to fit into the community since they are not allowed to participate in certain social events, says Catherine Nyamato, a former Kenyan Member of Parliament.

One issue emerging from the workshop during the discussions was the need to come up with a support system for those who declined to go through the cut – something that was really lacking in many African countries.

For instance, in Kenya, save for a few organizations that provided shelter for those who decided to run away from the cut, there was no other support system for such cases in many areas.

Most of the girls are forced to undergo the cut simply out of the fear of being ostracized. For those who decline, they find it extremely difficult to survive outside their communities when there is no ‘fall back position’.

“There is need to provide some form of support system in the community for the runaways otherwise most girls resort to give in out of fear of becoming outcasts,” notes Dr. Dehlot.

She contends that even with the legal framework in place in most African countries, FGM continues unimpeded.

Other reasons cited for the continued prevalence of the practice were economic reasons. For example, in some communities, bride price cannot be paid for a woman who has not been cut.

Additionally, due to poverty, some women are forced to undergo FGM to increase their chances of getting married to a well-endowed man who is able to care for them.

Anthropologists estimate that Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) dates as far back as 4000 years in various parts of the world with over three million women and girls continuing to undergo the outdated practice every year in Africa.

Although several measures have been taken to eradicate the practice by states world over, culminating in these being incorporated into international human rights instruments, the practice is thriving in many African countries.

For instance, a committee formed to oversee the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Violence against Women (CEDAW) in 1981 identified FGM as a form of discrimination and hence declared the rite a violation of human rights.

This was also followed by the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989, which outlawed traditional harmful practices that are based on the “inferiority or superiority of either of the sexes”.

More recently, the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) in March 2005 convened for a ten-year review of the implementation of commitments made in the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action (BPFA) and included a pledge by governments to “revoke any remaining laws that discriminated on the basis of sex.”

FGM is prevalent in nearly 28 out of the 53 countries in Africa. Despite efforts by governments and United Nations to outlaw this practice, it is still carried out with impunity.

In Kenya, the fight against this practice can be traced back to 1956 when it was first outlawed by the then British Colonial Administration. Other subsequent measures followed, for example, there was the Presidential ban in 1982 and the action by the government to make it illegal to perform FGM in health facilities in the year 2001.

The failure to curtail the practice has mostly been blamed on the deeply entrenched cultural significance of FGM in societies where it’s practiced.

The lack of commitments by authorities has also been seen to play a role in making the ritual thrive.