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Some battles, sadly, have to be fought over and over again. Even the most shocking practices, such as female genital mutilation, have their defenders, ready to revive bad and discredited arguments whenever the opportunity arises. The UN has campaigned against FGM for years, using high-profile figures like Angelina Jolie to make the case against cutting girls’ bodies for the sake of nonsensical ideas about desire and sexual hygiene. Yet a federal judge has thrown out the very first prosecution of doctors and parents ever to take place in the US, potentially setting back the campaign to protect women and girls by decades.
It has to be said at once that the case was lost on a technicality. The judge ruled that outlawing FGM is a matter for individual states, arguing that Congress did not have the authority to pass a 1996 law that prohibited it across the board. The judgment is likely to be appealed but one of its disastrous effects is to make further prosecutions of FGM practitioners extremely difficult at a time when it’s believed that the practice is becoming more widespread. Immigration from countries where FGM is common means that more than half a million women and girls in the US are believed to be at risk, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
Ominously, the failed prosecution has energised defenders of FGM, who claimed in court and TV interviews that all that was done to nine child victims was “female circumcision” or a “ritual nick”. The medic who carried out the procedure, Dr Jumana Nagarwala, belongs to a small Shia Muslim sect, the Dawoodi Bohra, some of whose members have their daughters cut in defiance of the longstanding (and previously unchallenged) federal ban in the US. Her lawyer claimed that she had merely carried out a protected religious procedure that didn’t involve removing the clitoris or labia, unlike the most extreme form of FGM.
In reality, FGM is much more a cultural than a religious practice, originating in Africa where it is still carried out in many countries. And while it is bad enough to hear people defending any species of unnecessary surgical procedure on girls’ bodies, doctors who examined the child victims found plenty of evidence of harm; they discovered scar tissue and lacerations to the girls’ genitalia, while one victim said she was in so much pain she could hardly walk.
Some of the girls cried and screamed during the procedure and one was given Valium ground into liquid Tylenol to keep her calm, according to court records. Two of the victims were just seven years old when Dr Nagarwala performed these procedures on them, using a private clinic in Detroit owned by another doctor who also faced charges.
FGM is controversial even among members of this sect, which originated in western India, and some actively oppose it. They are worried by the outcome of the Detroit trial, believing that it sends a dangerous message to countries where huge numbers of girls are still being mutilated. “Unfortunately this is going to embolden those who believe that this must be continued… they’ll feel that this is permission, that it’s OK to do this,” said Mariya Taher, who was herself a child victim of the same type of FGM.
In western and developing countries alike, some of the most effective campaigners against FGM come from communities where it is still practised, often women who were forced to undergo the procedure themselves when they were children. Many of them are justifiably angry about something that was done to them without their consent, with potentially catastrophic consequences for their sex lives and ability to give birth safely. In some good news, the British government has committed to spend £50 million on grassroots programmes to stop FGM across Africa by 2030.
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SubscribeMost interesting. Thank you.