More than 500K in U.S. Risk Female Genital Mutilation, Say Feds
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that “more than 500,000 women and girls in the United States are at risk of or have been subjected to FGM/C (Female Genital Mutilation or Cutting).”
The CDC says that some of these half million women and girls are cut in the United States. Others are sent abroad for mutilation.Today is the International Day of Zero Tolerance for FGM, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and other U.S. agencies are calling on the “global community” for an end to this abuse.
In the United States, FGM/C is a serious crime and officials have prosecuted individuals who performed the procedure.
FGM/C is also a form of child abuse.
Those who engage in this criminal procedure can be convicted and serve prison time. There are also immigration consequences.
Last April, three people in Michigan were charged in connection with the crime. Breitbart News reported that Dr.
Fakhruddin Attar and his wife Farida Attar was arrested in the Detroit
suburb of Livonia, Michigan. Dr. Jumana Nagarwala was arrested the week
before. The arrests represented the first prosecution of FGM/C in the U.S.
The list of Attar’s victims began after two
seven-year-old Minnesota girls were brought across state lines to have
the mutilating procedure done at Attar’s Burhani Medical Clinic.
As reported by Breitbart News, the:
practice [is] common primarily in Muslim countries, particularly those in Africa. For example, UNICEF estimates that 98% of Somali girls and 87% of Egyptians have endured the procedure.
Last July, a female genital mutilation probe widened to Los
Angeles, Chicago, and New York and more arrests and indictments were
expected. Assistant U.S. Attorney Sara Woodward, a prosecutor in the
Attar case, told the Detroit News in June that
she estimated that there were at least 100 victims of the Muslim
mutilation ring over the last 12 years. Breitbart News and the Detroit News reported that
the number was underestimated. At least one other person was
investigated in New York City for involvement in the conspiracy.
Breitbart News reported that
the CDC estimated in 2016 that the number of women and girls in the
U.S. who are “at risk of or may have been subjected” to FMG/C was up
three-times the amount over the past decades.
Last year, the state of Texas took aim at
FGM by passing legislation that provides for the prosecution of
individuals who transport girls within or out of the state to undergo
the procedure, as reported by Breitbart Texas at the time. The state already has a ban on the procedure.
The issue of FGM/C has been a sensitive and politically-loaded one. Last year, Breitbart News reported that The New York Times used
the term in May – an apparent reversal from an editor’s position the
week before that the paper would not use the “culturally loaded” term.
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