TOPSHOTS Kenyan Maasai women gather during a meeting dedicated to the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) in which several participants voiced opposition to a ban currently in place, on June 12, 2014, in Enkorika, Kajiado, 75km from Nairobi. Some women of the semi-nomadic Maasai community expressed the view that uncircumcised girls are no longer getting married and are promiscous, which they said was against their traditional culture. FGM is perceived by some of the more traditional women of the Maasai community as bringing honour to a girl and to her family, making girls more eligible for marriage and raising the social status of their familes. The Maasai have held to the custom in the face of widespread criticism by Kenyan society and the international community, and despite criminalisation of the practice by the Kenyan government in 2002. The Maasai ceremonial ritual accompanying FGM marks the coming of age of a girl, when she sheds the last vestiges of childhood and joins womankind. It is traditionally performed between the ages of 12 and 14 and is part of the traditional rites of passage for girls, in order for them to be considered adults in their community. AFP PHOTO / SIMON MAINA