Frankly, the refugees (and other immigrants) bring the brutal practice with them. We know this is a problem in certain ethnic groups from Africa and the Middle East, and although those who don’t want it discussed will say that other people (of other religions) cut their daughters’ clitorises too, but it’s mostly practiced today by Muslims.
Creeping Sharia brought us two stories this week on the issue.
First from Trust Law:
NEW YORK (TrustLaw) – 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. [Surely this is based on census data about the increasing population of immigrants from certain countries, not on a specific question about the intactness of respondents’ genitalia—ed]
Read the whole news story (and follow links).
Not an African issue, an America issue!
The New York Daily News also reported on the new study from Sanctuary for Families:
New York’s metropolitan area is home to more women and girls who have been mutilated in female circumcision ceremonies — or are at risk — than any other U.S. city, experts estimate.
The global practice is a local issue, thanks to illegal surgeries performed here — but immigrant girls are often sent back to their parents’ homelands to undergo mutilation.
More than a dozen cases are documented in a new report to be released Friday by Sanctuary for Families.
One city teen’s father sent her and her little sister to his Gambian hometown for what they thought was just a visit to see their grandmother.
But Grandma had another agenda.
“She warned us that if we refused to undergo female genital mutilation, she would be disappointed in us, and that the entire village would find out and force (it) upon us against our will,” the woman, now 27, told Sanctuary researchers.
The centuries-old practice, based on beliefs about premarital “cleanliness,” has immigrated to the U.S. along with families from parts of West Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. The surgery is most widely done on infants and teens. It severely reduces sexual pleasure and can cause major health complications.
Like most Americans I wasn’t even aware of this horrible business until I read the discussion of it (in great detail) in Ayan Hirsi Ali’s must-read biography—‘Infidel’—when it came out 5 years ago.
Graphic (above) is posted here and is from the Woman Stats Project. If you can’t read it, the darkest color on the map is where more than half of the country’s women undergo the procedure. Immigrants are bringing the practice to Canada, the US, the EU, and Australia—all primary resettlement countries.