Posted on 03/18/2013 3:10:00 PM PDT by markomalley
The ancient, brutal practice of female genital mutilation (FGM), once considered primarily a problem of the developing world, is a growing threat to girls and women in the United States, according to a new report.
The United States has longstanding laws against the practice of FGM on U.S. soil and in January, passed a federal law against sending young women outside the country for so-called "vacation cutting". However, girls living in America increasingly are at risk of the procedure both at home and abroad, according to research by Sanctuary for Families.
The New York City-based non-profit organisation, which specialises in gender-based violence, said up to 200,000 girls and women in the United States are at risk of FGM and that the number is growing.
"People in the United States think that FGM only happens to people outside of the United States, but in all actuality, people here all over the country have been through FGM," said Jaha, 23, formerly from Gambia and now a survivor and advocate against FGM.
"Kids that were born in this country are taken back home every summer and undergo this procedure," she was quoted as saying in the report.
The study cited analysis of data from the 2000 census that found between 1990 and 2000 the number of girls and women in the United States at risk of the procedure - which involves the partial or total removal of external female genitalia - increased by 35 percent.
SADNESS, EMPTINESS
Most prevalent in immigrant African and Middle Eastern communities, FGM generally originates in the belief by some cultures that it preserves a girl's virginity before marriage and discourages her from promiscuity after she is wed. In many communities, a girl is deemed unfit for marriage if she has not undergone FGM.
The report said FGM has been performed in the United States by health care providers who support FGM or do not want to question families' cultural practices.
Whether performed covertly on U.S. soil or in ceremonies held in ancestral homelands during school vacations, the procedure often is done by traditional practitioners using crude implements, such as razor blades and broken glass. They often operate in unsanitary conditions, far from medical facilities, without anaesthesia, antiseptics or antibiotics.
The physical and psychological effects can be devastating and even fatal. FGM can cause severe pain during sexual intercourse, haemorrhage, shock, complications in childbirth and fistula. It can also lead to depression and anxiety.
"FGM has affected me emotionally throughout my entire life. Those terrible moments stay with me and I just cannot forget them," a 53-year-old woman named Nafissatou, originally from Guinea, told researchers.
"When I went to the hospital to give birth to my children, my experience with FGM was what I remembered most. Every time I shower, I think about it. There is a sadness and emptiness I fell every day because of what FGM took from me," she said.
LACK OF PROSECUTIONS
The United Nations last December called for a global ban on FGM, but, as with laws in the United States, implementation is extremely difficult and, to date, prosecutions have been rare.
The United States has had a law against FGM since 1996 and 20 states have passed their own statutes. But, according to the report, as of 2012, there have been no prosecutions under federal law, and only one criminal case has been brought forward under a state statute.
One problem is that families in the United States, even those who oppose FGM for their daughters, often find themselves under severe pressure from their extended families to subject girls to the procedure.
Another obstacle is a lack of reporting of FGM either by victims, girls at risk or their families. Part of the reason may be due to ignorance of the law, the report found.
"However, reasons for underreporting likely also include reluctance on the part of the girl or her family to come forward, precisely because they know and fear the legal penalties for doing so," it said.
"Many girls fear that innocent family members, especially their mothers, will be considered complicit in their family’s efforts to force them to undergo FGM, or worry that if they report their relatives, they will be arrested, prosecuted, and possibly deported," it added.
The report makes a number of recommendations on ways to prevent FGM in the United States.
Key among them:
--Outreach and education to immigrant communities about the legal, physical and psychological consequences of FGM.
--Encouraging community and religious leaders to educate their communities about the harm and illegality of FGM
--Guidelines and training to assist front-line professions, such as law enforcement agents, teachers and health care workers to identify and protect girls at risk.
--Robust enforcement of laws prohibiting FGM, not only on U.S. soil but in the case of girls sent abroad for the procedure.
Yeah, I noticed that too. I guess it is just something that occurs out in the ether. They go to bed fine, and wake up mutilated. /sarc
Why even do the article if you have no intention of being honest?
>>Why even do the article if you have no intention of being honest?
Because the feminazis and metrosexuals think we don’t spend enough taxpayer dollars trying to prevent it.
Untrue. The practice is much older than Islam. There is good evidence it was common in ancient Egypt.
Muslims are NOT the only group to practice it. Many "pagan" African groups do so, as do many Christian groups such as the Copts of Egypt.
Also many, probably most, Muslims do not engage in the practice.
To be fair, the practice is primarily Muslim, just not exclusively.
OK, I’ll stand corrected. But Copts? Seriously? That surprises me.
As for tube-tiers and vas-snippers: the HHS contraceptive mandate says that all forms of fertility-disruption, including surgical sterilization, and long-term injectable and implantable hormonal spaying--- must be available free and without co-pay to all females legally resident in the U.S. with reproductive capacity. That means from menarche to menopause --- roughly from 12 to 52.
Wake up and smell the prostaglandins. Your tax (and mandatory premium) dollars at work.
>>Wake up and smell the prostaglandins. Your tax (and mandatory premium) dollars at work.
I fully support the spaying and neutering of feral humans and that means anyone who makes more money from welfare than from work, drug addicts, and career criminals. That is a good use of tax money. Its a humane use of tax money and its a lot cheaper than taking care of their offspring for decades.
I’ll have to see some documentation on the parents of tranny children forcing them to undergo sex alteration surgeries.
Confusing primary school kids to the point where they'll ask "Gee, am I gay?" is so last year. We've now progressed to the point of getting primary school children to ask, "Gee, am I transgender?
Second: the HHS Mandate is not just for the classes of people you disfavor: the welfare dependent, drug addicts, and career criminals. It is to be offered for free (without copay) to all females legally resident in the United States between puberty and menopause.
Third: was I mistaken? I'd guessed you had some "human dignity" objection to cutting girls' genitals.
>>First: Read up. Sex Reassignment Surgery for Children
Allowing children to choose sex reassignment surgery is child abuse. Plain and simple. Forcing them to undergo it is...I don’t even know what to call a crime like that. But, I went to your link and didn’t find a single case of adults FORCING a child to undergo a sex change.
>>Second: the HHS Mandate is not just for the classes of people you disfavor: the welfare dependent, drug addicts, and career criminals. It is to be offered for free (without copay) to all females legally resident in the United States between puberty and menopause.
“Offering” surgical sterilization to any adult is OK with me. Plenty of people choose vasectomy or tubal ligation. I don’t see anything in your post that is mandating it.
>>Third: was I mistaken? I’d guessed you had some “human dignity” objection to cutting girls’ genitals.
You can’t see the difference between holding a girl down and mutilating her genitals and an adult woman choosing to get her tubes tied?? Really?
I am not against birth control as long as it PREVENTS pregnancy. Once the woman is pregnant, its different. But, as a preventive measure, any birth control is OK with me. You obviously do not believe in birth control. That is your right, but don’t try to link it to a violent crime like FGM.
!
I am not sure, then, what you mean by "force," or why that wouldn't include any deliberate disabling of the child's sexual function without a therapeutic purpose.
Say a parent takes a minor child to get a sex-change, clitoridectomy, vasectomy, tubal ligation, labioplasty, vaginoplasty, IUD, hormonal injection, patch, or insertion, or any other form of non-therapeutic "elective" surgery. Its purpose is to excise or disable sex organs in whole or in part. The choice is being made by the parent, because the minor child cannot consent.
Do you think this is right? Statutory rape isn't considered right, even if the minor child "consents" - because a child cannot legally consent. Why should non-therapeutic sexual impairment or disabling be treated differently?
Surely minor is being "forced" even if she says, "Yeah, Mom, that's what I want" or even "Please, mom, can I get this done?"
in Somalia or Sierra Leone object to Type I, Type II and even Type III genital cutting? Mostly not. Their mothers want it for them, and thus they want it themselves. And Type IV is almost always done at the girl's own request (the parents, of course, abetting.)
Why is cutting off a girl's clitoris and labia considered a crime (which it is), but intentionally disabling her with an endocrine disruptor is not?
>>Say a parent takes a minor child to get a sex-change, clitoridectomy, vasectomy, tubal ligation, labioplasty, vaginoplasty, IUD, hormonal injection, patch, or insertion, or any other form of non-therapeutic “elective” surgery. Its purpose is to excise or disable sex organs in whole or in part. The choice is being made by the parent, because the minor child cannot consent.
Again, if you can’t see the huge difference between a clitoridectomy and an IUD, then there’s no point in any further discussion. That’s like comparing removal of a mole to removal of an arm.
You can't see that?
I am guessing that for some, the difference is the one causes a disability that they don't favor, and the other causes a disability that they do.
But physiologically impairing a child is not something that they oppose in principle.
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