Extreme Wives with Kate Humble

Episode 1

Episode #1.1

59 mins

Kate Humble visits the Kuria district of southwestern Kenya. The Kuria people are polygamous, but what makes this community so interesting is that they also practice woman-to-woman marriage, known as nyumba mboke. She is invited to stay with a family headed by a man called Mosenda, who has four wives. Kate meets Mosenda's first wife Paulina and is then introduced to Paulina's wives Lillian and Faith. Kate then meets Susan who is campaigning against the practice of Female Genital Mutilation and hears how Susan nearly lost her life after being circumcised and had to undergo operations in order to be able to have children. Susan invites Kate to accompany her on a risky mission to remove a young girl whose father wants her to be circumcised. Under cover of darkness and with an armed policewoman as back-up Susan takes the girl to a safe-house. Kate speaks to the district commissioner about FGM and discovers that tribal elders profit from the continuation of the practice, but the elders tell her that FGM cannot be completely banned as that would anger their god Eresa. Days later, Kate is horrified to learn that because police arrested some of the elders, they believed that Eresa told them to continue FGM and over 300 girls from the community have been circumcised the previous night.