The British undertook a campaign to stop the practice of female genital mutilation in Kenya in 1929–32.〔Joceyln Murray, ''The Kikuyu Female Circumcision Controversy, with special reference to the Church Missionary Society's sphere of influence'', PhD thesis, University of California, Los Angeles, 1974.
Lynn M. Thomas, ("'Ngaitana (I will circumcise myself)': Lessons from Colonial Campaigns to Ban Excision in Meru, Kenya" ), in Bettina Shell-Duncan, Ylva Hernlund (eds), ''Female "Circumcision" in Africa''. Lynne Rienner, 2000, p. (132 ): "The years 1929 to 1931 mark what has been termed within Kenyan historiography as the "female circumcision controversy."
Margaret Strobel, Marjorie Bingham, "Appendix A. World Studies as an Approach to World History: Female Genital Cutting and Kenyan/Gikuyu Nationalism," in Bonnie G. Smith (ed.), ''Women's History in Global Perspective'', University of Illinois Press, 2004, p. (35 ): "The 'female circumcision controversy' played a critical role in Gikuyu nationalism.〕 Their efforts were met with resistance by the Kikuyu people, Kenya's largest tribe. American historian Lynn M. Thomas writes that the issue became a focal point of the independence movement against British colonial rule, and a test of loyalty, either to the Christian churches or to the Kikuyu Central Association, the association of the Kikuyu people.〔Thomas 2000, p. 129ff.〕
The Kikuyu regarded FGM as an important rite of passage between childhood and adulthood. Uncircumcised women were outcasts, and the idea of abandoning the practice was unthinkable.〔Robert Strayer, Jocelyn Murray, ("The CMS and Female Circumcision" ), in Robert Strayer (ed.), ''The Making of Missionary Communities in East Africa'', Heinemann Educational Books, 1978, p. 36ff.〕 Jomo Kenyatta, who became Kenya's first prime minister in 1963, wrote in 1930:
The campaign against FGM was led by the Church of Scotland. In March 1928, the issue came to a head when the Kikuyu Central Association announced that it would contest elections to the Native Council, with the defence of Kikuyu culture, including FGM, as its main platform. The following month the church at Tumutumu announced that all baptised members must offer a declaration of loyalty by swearing their opposition to FGM. Several other church missions followed suit. Robert Strayer and Jocelyn Murray write that the stage was set for a major conflict, with neither side willing to compromise.〔
==See also==
*Decolonization of Africa
*History of Kenya
*Kenya Colony
*Mau Mau Uprising
*Presbyterian Church of East Africa
*Scramble for Africa
*Female_genital_mutilation#Colonial_opposition_in_Kenya