The British undertook a campaign from 1929 to 1932 to stop the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) in Kenya, which was a British colony at the time. Their efforts were met with resistance by the Kikuyu people, Kenya's largest tribe, and resulted in what was called the "female circumcision controversy" in the euphemistic terminology of the time. American historian Lynn M. Thomas writes that the issue became a focal point of the independence movement against British colonial rule, and a test of loyalty, either to the Christian churches or to the Kikuyu Central Association, the association of the Kikuyu people.
The Kikuyu regarded FGM as an important rite of passage between childhood and adulthood. Uncut women were outcasts, and the idea of abandoning the practice was unthinkable. Jomo Kenyatta, who became Kenya's first prime minister in 1963, wrote in 1930:
The real argument lies not in the defence of the general surgical operation or its details, but in the understanding of a very important fact in the tribal psychology of the Kikuyu—namely, that this operation is still regarded as the essence of an institution which has enormous educational, social, moral and religious implications, quite apart from the operation itself. For the present it is impossible for a member of the tribe to imagine an initiation without clitoridoctomy [sic]. Therefore the ... abolition of the surgical element in this custom means ... the abolition of the whole institution.
The campaign against FGM was led by the Church of Scotland. In March 1928, the issue came to a head when the Kikuyu Central Association announced that it would contest elections to the Native Council, with the defence of Kikuyu culture, including FGM, as its main platform. The following month the church at Tumutumu announced that all baptised members must offer a declaration of loyalty by swearing their opposition to FGM. Several other church missions followed suit. Robert Strayer and Jocelyn Murray write that the stage was set for a major conflict, with neither side willing to compromise.