Arror, Kenya ? She is so shy that she can only whisper her story, hiding her mouth behind a clenched fist, never meeting anyone’s eye.

Dorcas Chelagat, at 13, is one of the most powerless members of her tribe, a child whose value is equal to the dowry price of a few goats and blankets. But shyness sometimes conceals a well of strength.

She tells of her journey with 22 other children who defied their elders and parents, who ignored the risk of ridicule, curses and beatings and turned their backs on their homes. They traveled six hours in snake-infested hills to escape the common practice of female genital mutilation.

But the Kenyan government, which has outlawed the practice, quickly sent the girls home to face the certainty of the ritual, forcing those who dared to run away again.

In the Marakwet community and many other tribes, there is no route to maturity for girls except through genital mutilation.

The first cut, made during an annual public ceremony, is small and symbolic, said Jacob Kibor, a Marakwet pastor who has campaigned long against the practice. Then the girls are taken to a seclusion hut where the major operation takes place, using a knife or blade and no anesthetic to remove the external sexual organs, including all or part of the clitoris and labia.

A World Health Organization paper in 2000 estimated that 2 million girls were at risk of genital mutilation annually, most in 28 African countries.

Ken Wafula, director of The Center for Human Rights and Democracy in Eldoret, set up a network of community monitors, who stage seminars in villages at the beginning of the ritual’s season to warn girls of possible complications, inform them of their rights and offer encouragement and protection to runaways.

Encouraged by the monitors, 40 girls from villages in this valley district ran away to Eldoret in December, including the 23 from Arror.

A few days after the girls fled, they found refuge with an elder of the African Inland Church, Edward Limo. But Linah Kilimo, a government minister from the Marakwet community, intervened and insisted that they be sent home. Two government vehicles took the 40 girls away.

When forced to go home, “we all cried,” Dorcas said.

In the days that followed, 33 of the 40 runaways fled once again to Limo’s house, traveling in groups of two, three or four.

He doesn’t know the fate of the seven who did not return.