Clitoraid has announced a plan to perform a clitoral restorative surgery (CRS) in Kenya, with at least 150 patients expected to benefit from the project.

The U.S.-based non-governmental organisation (NGO) launched the ‘Adopt a Clitoris’ fundraising campaign on 06 February, 2021, to fund the CRS project in October this year.

Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), involves the partial or total removal of external female genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons.

Four million girls are at risk of undergoing FGM this year, according to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

The UN agency also noted in a report ahead of the 2021 International Day of Zero Tolerance for FGM that some 200 million women or girls alive today had experienced the practice.

In East Africa, Kenya leads in FGM prevalence rates at 21 percent compared to Tanzania (ten percent) and Uganda (0.3 percent), according to a 2020 report by Equality Now.

‘We call on the public to “Adopt A clitoris”, that is, to sponsor the 150 FGM Kenyan patients who will be scheduled for surgery during our upcoming mission this fall’, Clitoraid International Director of Operations, Nadine Gary, said in a statement.

‘These women are desperate to turn the page on the unspeakable trauma they have endured in their childhood and to finally recover their clitoris, this precious organ, solely dedicated to their sexual pleasure’.

It is understood that the Covid-19 pandemic has also caused medical supplies to triple in cost in Kenya.

The price of a CRS procedure is estimated at $600.

‘That is in spite of doctors such as Dr Marci Bowers, Clitoraid’s head surgeon, and Dr Adan Abdulahi, the host of the mission in Nairobi, and others, volunteering their services’, Gary said.

The project is a global call to denounce and erase centuries of shame and guilt around women’s sexual pleasure.

Source: Clitoraid

Photo source: DFID