Rights for Women One Bead at a Time

At age 15, Rebecca Lolosoli prepared for marriage in accordance with the traditions of her Samburu tribe in semi-arid northern Kenya, as did her mother and grandmother before her: she submitted to genital mutilation.

Female circumcision is a traditional tribal rite of passage in Lolosoli's culture.

Before the wedding day, she was held down and, without anesthetic, tribal matriarchs cut off her nerve-sensitive genitalia with a razor. She bled profusely and nearly died. The wedding had to be postponed.

Last Sunday, Lolosoli shared her gripping story with an audience at the Westport Unitarian Church, which co-sponsored the event with Vital Voices — a non-profit organization active in women's rights issues in the developing world.

Lolosoli, now 46, spared her own two daughters the gruesome procedure, and has devoted her life to improving the lives of women in her tribe and recognizing their human rights. A couple weeks ago, Vital Voices honored her at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., in a celebration of her great courage, leadership and contributions to women's rights.

In 1990, fleeing an abusive marriage, Lolosoli founded a safe-haven community for victims of torture, rape and violence, called the Umoja Uaso Women's Village, located near the equator. Today, 48 members of the flourishing community sustain themselves by creating beautiful traditional beaded neckwear and headpieces that are then exported.

Lolosoli now travels throughout the Samburu District in northern Kenya crusading for equal rights for women and ending the traditional practice of genital mutilation. Women who resist the procedure are told their babies will be killed unless they submit to the tradition, Lolosoli said.

To tribal women, she is a heroine.

To tribal men, she is vilified for diminishing their culture.

Lolosoli's courage is not met without danger. She lives with death threats, made by tribal traditionalists.

But for Lolosoli, standing up for human rights and the future of tribal women outweighs any fear associated with such threats.

Lolosoli's Samburu tribe is one of 40 tribes recognized in Kenya. Nomadic and pastoral, living in huts made of mud and cow dung, without electricity or running water, the Samburu are strongly traditional and patriarchal; they have maintained their traditions even as other tribes have yielded to pressures of modern culture.

Among the Samburu, women have no rights, Lolosoli said. "Without a man, you are just a useless thing," she said. Samburu girls do not attend school and when they marry they become property of their husbands, she said. They must sit in their husbands' presence and cannot eat until he has eaten and even then are fed just the scraps he chooses to discard. They cannot own land.

Women are responsible for most of the hard work of their villages, said Lolosoli. They build the huts, milk the cows, collect firewood, go great distances to fetch water, care for the children and prepare meals. The men, traditional warriors, herd the livestock — the cattle, goats, camels and sheep.

"The women are up at 3 o'clock in the morning milking and feeding the livestock and do not rest until 11 at night," Lolosoli said. Still, Lolosoli does not advocate ending all of these traditions — only those that endanger the health and safety of women and their children. She walks a delicate line in her activism and professes a deep love for her culture.

Her tribal pride is apparent in her bright red attire, beaded earrings extending to her waist, elaborate beaded neck wreath and exquisite beaded headpiece with a silver star extending to her forehead. "We believe we are from the stars," she says with a radiant smile.

The women in her Umoja village donate 15 percent of the proceeds from their sales of beadworks to a common fund. With such profits, they have built a school for their children and those in surroundings areas, established a fund for sickness and disability and enabled women to meet payments for higher education opportunities.

"Rebecca is an incredible visionary and has such a generous heart," said Zoe Dean-Smith, who gives training sessions to tribal women as an artisan export director for Vital Voices.

"Rebecca is taking the world as it is and creating a world as it should be," agreed David Vita, the Unitarian Church's director of social justice.

"When I see people in front of me, it gives me courage," Lolosoli said graciously in the English she learned from her Vital Voices training sessions.

It is hard to imagine Lolosoli, with her serene presence, as a vilified figure among her tribesmen. But she described how tribal men learned of the wealth the Umoja Village women were accumulating from their artisanal exports. They raided the village and stole what they could. Just recently, the village's pet goat, Napei, was stolen. Lolosoli believes the theft occurred to anger the women and create anxiety.

Lolosoli's village is devoted to teaching its boys to respect girls and women and to reject harmful practices, such as genital mutilation. "We are trying to teach the boys to learn love for their future wives so they will have a good life, not like us," she said.

For more information about Vital Voices and to order beadworks, visit www.vitalvoices.org.