 Elsewhere, support for the practice from women was strong.In 1956 in Meru, eastern Kenya, when the council of male elders (the "Njuri Nchecke") announced a ban on FGM in 1956, thousands of girls cut each other's genitals with razor blades over the next three years as a symbol of defiance.The movement came to be known as "Ngaitana" ("I will circumcise myself"), because to avoid naming their friends the girls said they had cut themselves.