Category: women’s issues

Female Genital Mutilation comes to Ireland with third world immigrants

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Well, really all of Western Europe and the US too.   And, according to this article in Women News Network, one of the big problems is that the general public doesn’t know much about the horrific cultural practice and those who come in contact with immigrant children are basically unaware and untrained to recognize signs that a child is suffering.

From Women News Network:

Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is a topic that has been rarely associated with Western Europe, yet due to the arrival of immigrants and refugees from Africa, the Middle East and Asia, female circumcision has become a specific Western concern. It is estimated that in the European Union alone, 500,000 girls and women live with FGM and every year another 180,000 are at risk of being circumcised.

[….]

Therein lies one of the greatest challenges surrounding FGM in Europe, according to Leye [Dr Els Leye, a scientist at the International Centre for Reproductive Health at the university of Ghent (Belgium)]: “Those people that are most likely to come in to contact with FGM victims – teachers, health care staff, police, childcare workers – are not aware that FGM is a real problem nor are they trained to recognize the symptoms.”

A Somali woman in Ireland is fighting the practice there.

Ifrah Ahmed (23) was circumcised in Somalia when she was eight years old. “I don’t remember much. We were a whole group of girls being circumcised together.” Ifrah was circumcised a second time when she was thirteen. “I was circumcised by a doctor so I was one of the ‘lucky’ ones; I know of girls that were circumcised with broken glass.

What I still don’t understand is how a doctor – an educated man – can do such things to young girls.”

Ifrah fled to Ireland five years ago, when she was just seventeen. Today, she is a vocal opponent of FGM and one of the main faces of the European ‘Ending Female Genital Mutilation’ campaign. “I don’t want other girls to go through what I went through, no matter where they were born or where they live,” she says.

Even in Ireland, the Somali community has ostracized Ifrah for her stand against FGM and the social pressure to conform to tradition, also abroad, cannot be ignored. “Somali men here have told me that I should stop attacking things which are part of our culture and Somali women tell me that it will be my fault if girls can’t find a husband because they have not been circumcised. I have received threats, yes. I have even gone to the police with certain voice-mails and have had to leave Dublin because I am so outspoken about FGM.”

Despite her personal ordeal and the opposition she faces from her own community, Ahmed continues her campaign and remains optimistic. Ireland recently passed legislation outlawing FGM. Will imposing a law provide the answer, I ask her? “Certainly imposing a law will help, but we still have a long way to go,” she admits. “What is more important is that the law is enforced. Without follow-up, any legislation becomes meaningless.”

So where is the US campaign against FGM (you know its happening here too!)?

I’m heartened to see and to report that the National Organization for Women (NOW) has a campaign against the “barbaric” practice.

Norway’s Muslim girls not protected by the government

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

That is according to a recent report from CBN News:

OSLO, Norway — It’s been almost a month since innocent Norwegians were killed by a lunatic obsessed with the threat of Islam.

But the terrible tragedy has not stopped civil debate in Norway over the impact of Muslim immigration.

Several weeks before the massacre in Norway, CBN News travelled to Oslo to investigate reports that that nation’s experiment with Muslim immigration and multiculturalism had gone terribly wrong, that Muslim radicalism was growing along with violence and intimidation against non-Muslims.

Islamists Target Women

In the wake of the killings, some on Norway’s political left call the fear of Islamization a “conspiracy theory.”

However, there are real victims – and they are mostly Norway’s women. Norway has never faced such problems before.

Even though Norway is a democracy, some Norwegian women do not have full rights. They are denied them by their families, and they live in fear for their lives.

At the Red Cross office in Oslo, Monica Berge-Tukh and Anne Marte Stifjeld take calls from Norwegian girls who face honor violence, forced marriage or genital mutilation.

Read it all.  One of the most shocking cases described involves little girls returned to Gambia for female genital mutilation.

Note to Canadian Somalis: no offense, but stick with murdering each other

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

That’s kind of the wrap up to this interesting commentary at Taki’s Magazine on the Edmonton, Canada Somali murder rate.  Hat tip: Mars.

From Kathy Shaidle (Five Feet of Fury) posted at Taki’s Magazine:

Let’s consider ourselves fortunate that Canada’s Somali settlers—the word “immigrant” is so 20th century—seem more or less content with killing each other.

On the last day of July, the Edmonton Journal devoted not two, not three, but seven articles to the latest spate of intra-Somali murders in Alberta’s capital.

(Nicknamed “Deadmonton,” that city leads Canada in homicides this year, with 29 so far—four of those victims being Somali “youths.”)

The Edmonton Journal depicts a community of approximately 10,000 self-effacing newcomers scratching out modest livings and shaken by the statistically significant number of dead sons they’ve been obliged to bury.

Canada has a most wanted for deportation list I’ve been meaning to tell you about.  Here is one story last week that I never got around to posting.  Shaidle references it here:

Even though the Journal’s series coincided with the “controversial” publication of “wanted posters” for war criminals illegally residing in Canada, their reporters didn’t mention that four of the 30 facing deportation are Somalis—along with Afghanistan, the highest number from a single country. That would have made for an enlightening “conversation” at that Edmonton “cafe,” since we’re informed elsewhere that “for many in the Somali community, the distinction between right and wrong is not as clear-cut as government officials would hope.”

Canada to spend nearly two million to integrate Somalis

Edmonton’s Somalis, if the Journal is to be believed, don’t sound like a people who didn’t have a standard alphabet until 1972 or had “never seen a two-story building” before moving to North America.

Regardless, they still cost us money. The Alberta government has pledged $1.9 million dollars to fund “programming” to help Somalis “integrate into mainstream society.”

Of course, that’s a pittance compared to long-term “wear and tear” on the social infrastructure. Take the 98% of Somali females who are victims of genital mutilation, which causes a number of health problems requiring treatment. (Since hymen-replacement surgery is matter-of-factly performed on female Muslims in Canada, it would be naive to presume that FGM isn’t being carried out as well, albeit in “unofficial” settings.)

The average Somali household “has seven median children and the median household income falls well below average.” The financial burdens they place on Canadian taxpayers should be obvious.

There is a lot more, including many links to additional information.  I’ve only touched on a few highlights.  Read on.

I repeat: not all cultures are the same…..

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

….hungering for freedom, democracy and a better life.

In March I reported on how the Egypt story quickly disappeared from the news—silence had settled on the mainstream media—when CBS reporter Lara Logan was beaten and sexually assaulted just as the poor downtrodden Egyptians had thrown off the oppressor’s yoke to gain their “freedom!”

Now, of course we know that the Muslim Brotherhood is calling the political shots (thanks to help from the American media, the US State Department (Obama!), and even American union bosses (Trumka!) who helped bring on the “revolution”).  And, I guarantee you Egypt will become a nation governed not by socialist dreamers but by Shariah Law as a result.

Meanwhile, I bet American NGO’s like Casa de Maryland and the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights  are still planning their September “community organizing” trip to Egypt led by Wade Rathke and the boys at the Organizer’s Forum.   They are either naive or fools.  Oh, but there is one more possibility—that they are on the same team as the Muslim Brotherhood.

When I wrote about the reason why the silence was deafening after the rape heard round the world, critics said it wasn’t so, Lara Logan wasn’t raped (see comments here, just a little “unwanted touching”).  Speaking out now, it sure sounds like she was violated and came near to dying at the hands of the liberators of Egypt.

Logan:  …what really struck me was how merciless they were.

From the Huffington Post*:

In interviews with “60 Minutes” and the New York Times which were released on Thursday, Logan described what happened when the mob surrounded her.

“Our camera battery went down, and we had to stop for a moment, and suddenly, Bahar [the Egyptian cameraman] looks at me and says, ‘we’ve got to get out of here,'” she told CBS’ Scott Pelley. “I thought, not only am I going to die here, but it’s going to be just a torturous death that’s going to go on forever and ever and ever.”

Logan told the Times that the attack lasted for 40 minutes and involved 200 to 300 men.

“For an extended period of time, they raped me with their hands,” she said. “My clothes were torn to pieces…what really struck me was how merciless they were. They really enjoyed my pain and suffering. It incited them to more violence.”

* Typical media, they still can’t say it. They have this story spun to send the message that this just shows how hard it is for women to cover conflicts around the world.  These ‘boys’ weren’t out to rape a reporter, they were brutalizing a western woman.   Wouldn’t it be wonderful for a change to see the Huffington Post, just once, show how hard it is for any woman (Muslim or non-Muslim, journalist or not) to live in an Islamic supremacist society and thus help send the message that we don’t want one here! 


Iraqi immigrant sentenced to 34 years for “honor” killing of daughter

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Thanks to Arizona for sending this strong message to Muslim immigrants—we have values and laws that we plan to uphold in America.  We are not shariah compliant yet!   Here is one of several previous posts we wrote (this one from Judy) on this case from back in 2009.

From CNN (Hat tip: Ed):

An Arizona judge sentenced an Iraqi immigrant* on Friday to more than 34 years in prison, about two months after his conviction for running over his 20-year-old daughter because he claimed she’d become “too Westernized.”

A Maricopa County, Arizona, jury in February convicted Faleh Hassan Almaleki, 50, of one count of second-degree murder in the death of Noor Faleh Almaleki. He was also found guilty of aggravated assault for causing serious injuries to Amal Edan Khalaf, the mother of Noor’s fiance, as well as two counts of leaving the scene.

In America we believe that parents have an awesome responsibility to nurture and protect our children.

Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery applauded the judge’s decision, saying “Mr. Almaleki will have an appropriately long time in prison to ponder this truth.”

“The killing of one’s own child is more than just a violation of the law,” Montgomery said in a press release. “It is an offense against parenthood itself and the awesome responsibility parents have for nurturing and protecting their children.”

Then here is something I don’t remember from our earlier reporting on the case.  The murderer tried to escape to that multi-cultural mecca—the UK, but they didn’t let him in!

After the incident, Almaleki drove to Mexico, abandoning his vehicle in Nogales, police said. He then made his way to Mexico City and boarded a plane to Britain, where authorities denied him entry into the country and put him on a plane back to the United States.

* It is not clear which legal immigration program the murderer used to get into the US in the first place.

Addendum: Phyllis Chesler, a scholar who tracks the issue of honor killings, has a good piece at FrontPage Magazine today. — Judy