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Those who know the woman describe her as a friendly, quiet person who "rarely shares her true story." The Kenyan woman, whose extradition to her native country was prevented at the last moment because of the possibility of her being subjected to genital mutilation, does not want to disclose her name, nor tell the public what she has been through.

She is a 42-year-old, slightly plump woman with short curly hair. In recent years, she has been living in the central neighbourhood of Kipseli in Athens, and everywhere she goes, she takes her three-year-old child with her. Her two older sons live in children’s homes of different foundations.

The oldest son is in third grade, and the teachers refer to him as "a golden child". The younger one attends kindergarten. The woman spends the weekends together with her ​​three children. They go on walks and go to church every Sunday morning. Some time ago, the woman’s husband, who is also the father of her youngest child and who lives in New York, had initiated procedures to transfer the woman and her three children to the United States.

However, the procedures are complicated and time consuming. The woman’s greatest fear in the last few months was that her trip to the U.S.A. might not take place, and they might send her to Kenya instead. All her fears, as she explained before the court, are caused by fact that she has been seriously threatened with torture and genital mutilation. The personal name of the woman shows that she is a member of the Kikuyu tribe.

The woman’s father is from the village of Muranga, the location of the "headquarters" of the extremist Mungiki organisation are, which has been operating in Kenya since 1980. The wife was born in the capital of Mombasa, where she had a carefree childhood. When her father lost his job, the family was forced to move to his village.

There, the 10-year-old girl already knew that she had to keep her secret at all costs - that she had not been subjected to female circumcision. This is a cruel "tradition" that girls have been bound to observe, often by means of violence, for nearly 300 years. A few years later, when Mungiki started checking to determine which of the women in the village were not circumcised, a former boyfriend of the woman betrayed her.

As she told before the Greek court, then her suffering began. The woman’s parents advised her to leave the village and settle in Nairobi. There she opened a hair studio, and she did not tell anyone where she came from for many years, or what her real motives were behind her decision to move to the city. However, someone discovered her secret and, for a long time, the woman was forced to deliver part of her income as an extortion sum, so that she would not be publicly disgraced and avoid circumcision.

All this continued until she got pregnant. After giving birth to her first child in 2001, without any financial help from the father, she told the racketeers that she was no longer capable of giving them money. But they were adamant and some Mungiki members began to threaten her. At night, they used to go to her ​​house, shouting that she was a shame to her tribe by making the decision to give birth to an illegitimate child and they threatened her.

The day when the racketeers broke into her studio and broke everything, the woman made her decision. She collected as much cash as she could get and on 3^rd September 2002 she boarded a plane to Greece. In Athens, the woman began to work as a housemaid and to supplement her income as a hotel maid. She had a "green card" providing legal residence to her, had social insurance, and quickly managed to bring her child to Greece.

In 2009, she gave birth to her second son, and a few years later, she met her current husband. They got married and she gave birth to another child. The economic crisis, however, changed their plans for the future. The woman lost her job and insurance, and she was forced to send her older children to foundation children’s homes.  At some point, she had no documents and faced the danger of being extradited. In August 2013, she submitted her first application to be granted asylum.

In recent years, the committee of the Ministry of Public Order has received ​​10 such applications from women. Some of them have already been circumcised, while others have raised the issue of the danger of being subjected to this cruel procedure.

“Some of the ten applications have been approved and the women have been guaranteed international protection," the director of the institution, Maria Stavropoulou, commented for Kathimerini. Due to protection of personal data, the director could not tell on the basis of what arguments or information some of the applications have been approved, while others, such as the one of the Kenyan woman, have been rejected.

However, the court decision showed that the Asylum Office has transferred the Kenyan woman’s case to the Ministry of the Interior. The woman has been informed that pursuant to a specific law, she may submit an application to obtain a residence permit due to humanitarian reasons. In the Greek bureaucratic maze, however, the woman had to act quickly to prevent the likelihood of being extradited.

She turned for help to the Bar Association in Athens. She was referred to Mara Mastrogeorgopoulou - a young lawyer and member of the Women's Rights Association of Greek Attorneys NGO. Within three months, she filed a claim to the Administrative Court of Appeal for suspension of the extradition decision.

The lawyer submitted a folder with the personal story of the Kenyan woman and a detailed report on the activities of the Mungiki extremists in relation to female circumcision in Kenya. "The bibliography contains numerous examples showing that this 300-year-old tradition cannot be eradicated easily despite the existence of laws prohibiting it,"  the 26-year-old lawyer said for Kathimerini newspaper.

"It is a torture, inhuman and degrading treatment of women, which nevertheless continues to be applied," she added.
As GRReporter announced a week ago, the Administrative Court of Appeal in Athens approved the request to stop the extradition by admitting that the 42-year-old woman and her children are at risk.  Until the court reaches a final decision on the case, the Kenyan woman and her three children remain in Greece under "a mode of tolerance".