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Three hundred and eighty kilometres North of Nairobi, a clan of Samburu shephers - closely related to the Masai - is gathered in the middle of the savana for the circumcision ceremony of their teenagers. At sunrise, twenty adolescents boys aged between 12 to 22 undergo the rite of passage that will bring them into the adult world. By their side, sisters and cousins from 12 to 15 came before the knife as they also experienced ritual excision. Despite the official ban on female genital mutilation introduced in Kenya since 2001, the girls know that without enduring the ritual their chances to find a spouse and to get married would be seriously compromised. In the midst of this, the wife of a local chief protests in vain. Rebecca Lolosoli has been campaigning against the practice of female circumcision, though her pleas fall upon deaf ears. At her forties, the charismatic Lolosoli was invited to the UN to speak about the so close issue to her heart, and happens to be founder of Umoja ("Unity" in Swahili), a village where the law is in the hands of women. But the road to emancipation, as she knows, is still a long one!
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