A case of genital mutilation in Kenya

Sometimes it's hard to know what to say. This horrific story out of Kenya is from the BBC:

Kenyan villagers have been shocked by the death of girl who bled to death after trying to perform female genital mutilation (FGM) on herself.

Pamela Kathambi did the procedure on her own because she was being teased by her friends for not being circumcised in the remote village of Irindi.

Her mother told the BBC that she had refused to allow her 15-year-old to be circumcised last year.

FGM is banned in Kenya, but remains common in some areas.

In some communities it is believed that circumcision will maintain a girl's honour and is part of a girl's initiation into womanhood.

What can I say? That I'm grateful to live in a country like Canada? That at least the girl's mother did the right thing? That, in the end, social/peer pressure won out? Regardless, this incident, surely not an isolated one, should remind us that providing aid — specifically related to sexual education and women's health care — to underdeveloped countries should be a priority for the developed West.