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Coming to America: FGM
I couldn’t bring myself to spell out the initials in the title: Female Genital Mutilation. In fact, I nearly didn’t write the post, the topic is so abhorrent. But given the facts, and the manner in which this crime has been reported, I felt compelled to write about it.
Just over one week ago, Jumana Nagarwala was jailed in Detroit for practicing female genital mutilation on two, seven-year old girls. Acting Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Blanco said, “The Department of Justice is committed to stopping female genital mutilation in this country, and will use the full power of the law to ensure that no girls suffer such physical and emotional abuse.”
Nagarwala was a 44-year old emergency room physician working at Henry Ford Health System. In protesting her arrest, her attorney, Sharon Thompson, explained the following: “Nagarwala never performed female genital mutilation … The doctor merely wiped off a portion of the mucous membrane from the girls’ clitoris. A small amount was placed on a gauze pad and given to the family for burial. This is part of the culture,” Thompson told the magistrate.
Nagarwala is a member of the Dawoodi Bohra from India, a community that is based locally out of the Anjuman-e-Najmi mosque on Orchard Lake Road in Farmington Hills. It’s the only Dawoodi Bohra mosque in Michigan. At this writing, no one confirmed that her attorney’s description of the procedures she performed was accurate. At a hearing on Monday, she was held without bond while awaiting trial.
In my research I discovered that FGM is practiced by 29 African countries and also ethnic groups in the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula and the Persian Gulf. The Female Genital Mutilation website provides this chart:
Unicef provides the following data from 2016:
According to the data, girls 14 and younger represent 44 million of those who have been cut, with the highest prevalence of FGM among this age in Gambia at 56 per cent, Mauritania 54 per cent and Indonesia where around half of girls aged 11 and younger have undergone the practice. Countries with the highest prevalence among girls and women aged 15 to 49 are Somalia 98 per cent, Guinea 97 per cent and Djibouti 93 per cent.
In most of the countries the majority of girls were cut before reaching their fifth birthdays.
The global figure in the FGM statistical report includes nearly 70 million more girls and women than estimated in 2014.This is due to population growth in some countries and nationally representative data collected by the Government of Indonesia. As more data on the extent of FGM become available the estimate of the total number of girls and women who have undergone the practice increases.
In researching the data regarding the countries that immigrate to the US, I found the following information from Pew Research:
If you compare this chart to the previous chart, you can see that although some countries that immigrate to the US practice FGM with only a small portion of their children, it still occurs, and the numbers in those countries are increasing.
I feel obligated to point out a number of factors that counter such a devastating picture: we don’t know precisely which Muslims are actively practicing FGM in their countries of origin because complete data is hard to collect; we don’t know how many of the immigrants will maintain FGM practices if they immigrate to this country, given its illegality; we don’t know how many Muslim doctors will practice the procedure for the same reasons. There is simply a great deal we don’t know.
Regarding this topic, M. Zuhdi Jasser, at the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, reported on the crime and demanded a full investigation.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, originally from Somali, made the following points on Tucker Carlson’s show on Fox News:
People don’t like talking about the genitals of little girls, but we do have to describe what happens. The clitoris of the little girl is removed, and the labis is sewed shut. This is done to kill the sexual libido… and ensure virginity. Some people say they have religious reasons — it is because of Islam. Some say it is because of cultural reasons. Or a mixture of that. That can never be an excuse to harm girls in that way.
After checking the internet every day for the past week, I have only seen Dr. Jasser and Hirsi Ali speak out publicly against this travesty in Detroit.
Nagarwala’s mosque and the Muslim community in general, to my knowledge, have been silent.
Published in Culture
Yes. But as long as they can perform mutilation for secular purposes, they can’t be prohibited from performing comparable procedures for religious reasons. It’s the same issue as the animal sacrifice cases. We “sacrifice” animals all he time, for good, for their pelts, to control their populations. It cones down to killing ’em. So we can’t prohibit animal killing for religious purposes. That would be imposing a burden on a religious practice which we do not impose when the same actnis done for secular reasons .
You’re bringing up such thoughtful points, Hypatia. As I filter through my own thinking (who knew this would be so complicated?!), one thing I believe, and @kozak , you and others have touched on this point, is we/I feel compelled to look at these issues through a traditional lens of American values. That is what we have chosen to live by. The left obviously doesn’t agree, but that is where I stand. That may not simplify specific arguments, but it’s a place to start.
Why not? Honest question.
Does the law allow Gay Conversion Therapy to be practiced on children? (Less than it did – a sound direction to move in.)
If we can do it for psychological abuse we can do it for physical abuse. I don’t care what religion says about this.
No matter the unpleasantness of the subject, as a student of the English language, with a long-ago concentration in Middle English poetry, I cannot do other than applaud this sentence. I do so hope it was intentional.
As I was saying.
Easy Meat: Inside Britain’s Grooming Gang Scandal
Three Part Book Review by activist Anne Marie Waters
Part 1: Islamic Culture
An essential read.
Feminism, you’d think, would have been the death of multi-culturalism. But it isn’t. Why? I guess “intersectionality” was born–just in time! Almost too late! to save it.
Indeed genital mutilation and suttee are awful things. And I’m considering them in light of my training in cultural anthropology. These, as we have now established, are cultural customs–although anyone who thinks culture is somehow less critical to human life and identity than religion, is grossly mistaken. Religion is a manifestation of culture, not the other way ’round. Culture is the element in which we exist, like water to fish or oxygen to our physical existence.
You object to my mention of the Left. Yuh, many of ’em DO oppose FGM on children–and I say it’s hypocritical and totally incongruous of them to say it’s ok for parents to surgically maim their child’s genitals as a practice of the new religion of gender fluidity, but it’s not ok if it’s merely a cultural practice –of some other culture. All while insisting either that “we” don’t even have a culture ( god the stupidity!) and/or that our culture is inferior, repressive, racist, etc.
so yeah– this issue IS a proxy for the culture wars–and a damned fascinating one, to an anthropologist!
Yes Susan, exactly! That is what we should unashamedly be doing. But the Left won’t allow it; we can’t be heard to point out the most simple, obvious truth: never, in the history of this benighted planet, have women, and female children especially, been treated better and more humanely, and enjoyed more rights and legal protection, than here!
And now in the name of “multiculturalism” are we going to allow these values, these sane, humane practices and legal protections, to be eroded?
Are we going to allow our own First Amendment to be weaponized against us in the cause of religious and intellectual repression?
No. Effing. Way.
But to prevent it, we have to realize what we’re up against and anticipate the enemy’s tactics and the convoluted logic of their arguments. And that’s the point of everything I’ve posted here.
I guess they realised that not all women were white or middle class.
Multiculturalism does not automatically mean the oppression of women.
American (or Australian, or French or whateer) monoculturalism doesn’t automatically mean their liberation either.
It is not that simple.
Sure. That’s what makes us us.
But us is what it really makes. Not what we think it should because it doesn’t meet our theoretical specs. Or because it does.
I don’t see the point of it.
Less compelling for people who are worried about FGM – who are also real people like you and me – but I take your point. I trust you take mine.
Okay @she, you and Zafar see something in this that I’m probably going to be ashamed I didn’t…curiosity is killing me..what is the reference?
I’m with you, H. I’m glad I’m not the only one that missed it– c’mon @she, tell us!
I just saw an ambiguous whose. @she will doubtless quote Chaucer or whatnot now and make me feel uneducated and gauche.
OK, Susan, look here, if you dare. (Some less than high-toned sexual references). Has to do with the use of the word “queynte” in Chaucer’s poetry as a euphemism/pun for a vulgar reference to a female body part. A well-known thread, among language bluestockings who obsess about such things (hi, @Zafar), which can be traced through several other poets as well, through at least the seventeenth century . . .
??
“Whose” ? Wha’?! That word isn’t in @she‘s quotation. Now I’m even more confused. ….
Oh! ????? and all, but I think even someone who considers herself fairly literate (c’est moi) may perhaps be forgiven for not knowing that “quaint” was once synonymous with c—. Still–good to know! Thanks @she.
Life changing. Amirite?
(Also: no wonder I had no idea….)
Oh, good heavens, no need for forgiveness! I spend half my life on Ricochet Googling and looking stuff up just so I can keep up with the conversation. It’s one of the things I like most about the site.
I’m so rarely able to turn the tables, with the one rather obscure and narrow subject about which I can make even a pretense of academic competence, that perhaps I need to be forgiven for enjoying my little joke . . .
Exactly, Zafar! I know you’da gotten it right away if it had been a reference to some Midfke English word for the sword instead of the chalice!
Not at all, @she! And who could forget your enlightening explication of Browning’s use of “twat”?
BTW, you and @Zafar got me again–I looked up”Amirite”, thinking she must be some classical goddess or sump’n about whom I was also ignorant….. evidently I’m a bit, uh, insecure….
Well, with this exchange, this thread has become an example of a topic of serious tragedy turning without warning into a harmless prank! Sorry, @susanquinn!
I’ve heard men who were uncircumcised complain about infection and how tough it is to keep an uncircumcised penis clean. Marital sexual pleasure is a gift from G-d for both sexes. Circumcision does not deny a man that gift. FGM, or female circumcision, does deny that gift to a woman. Whether you agree with male circumcision, the loss felt as an adult is psychological, not physical. The same cannot be said for female circumcision.
Isn’t it interesting (sad) to watch this argument ensue in the United States? We have all watched it play out in Europe. It’s easy to see, looking at the arguments here on Ricochet, how Europe got to where they are today. It looks like there’s nothing we can do to stop it. As soon as something is tagged “religious,” for some reason we can’t touch it. And I know, that protects my freedom too.
All of the freedoms we have built into our western civilization are crashing into the bizarre ways those freedoms are exploited.
One of my favorite movies is The Inn of Sixth Happiness, which is about Gladys Aylward’s missionary work in China just before World War II when Japan was winning. Quite a bit of the movie concerns the Chinese practice of foot binding, and how Aylward tried to stop it, at the request of the local Chinese magistrate.
Pretty soon we won’t be prosecuting honor killings either. And we’ll look the other way when people do other weird things, as they did in England in Rotherham.
This world needs some moral clarity more than anything else right now.
Well, when it comes to sex, the psycholgical IS the physical. Don’t mistake me, I agree with the distinction you make; But the gents I mentioned wouldn’t see it that way. Just like the hijabbed moms don’t see any gradation of female genital tampering the same way an American soccer mom does.
I know. That’s why I’ve gravitated to a position of stopping all immigration. If we can’t procribe who and from where people immigrate (and we used to be able to do so) then all immigration should stop. Except with our border neighbors. I suppose we could qualify it with that.
And the rationale for immigration in this high tech world seems less to me. We can outsource where we have limited people to perform the work or where it makes economic sense to do so. We don’t need to bring in immigrants and have to deal with the negative aspects of immigration.
No I don’t agree with that. Are you saying we cannot prohibit FGM because males are allowed to be circumcised? There are lots of laws that on the surface can be seen as inconsistent. We are talking values, not some abstract philosophic exercise. Values pertain to an established culture. If immigrants don’t want to accomodate to the culture they are going to, then they shouldn’t come. Or they should be shipped off.
Well, what do they want to do, sue their parents? I have seen that also, and it’s not a significant amount. It’s a childish few. There are outliers in everything.
I do. Prison and deportation.
Personally I could not agree more with your last sentence. But what I’m saying is, as a matter of constitutional law, govt cannot burden religious practices when it allows the same act if done secular purposes. So it’s more like we can’t prohibit FGM ANDbcircumcision, if we allow genital mutilation for non-religious purposes, like gender change or cosmetic reasons.
A federal law exists to penalize those involved in “transporting minors in foreign commerce for the purposes of female genital mutilation.” It was authored by Joe Crowley, a New York Democrat. When introduced, his bill was co-sponsored by 25 members–of whom 11 were Democrats, including Ricochet favorite Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
Preventing American girls from being sent abroad to undergo FGM (euphemistically referred to as vacation cutting) is a limited form of protection (presumably full prohibition of the practice in the US and prosecution for its perpetrators is the goal), but some protection nonetheless. That this law was authored and sponsored by some Democrats hardly supports Hypatia’s claim above that “the Left will promote and protect [the practice].”
Seems to me this is an issue that the left and the right can come together on to prohibit completely on American soil.
update: Banning FGM in the US isn’t a goal. It’s already federal law (see source #3 below).
sources: