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Female
Genital Mutilation in the West: A Creeping Crime Against Humanity
by Phyllis Chesler
Breitbart
November 19, 2014
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Sohair
el-Batea died in June 2013 at the age of 13.
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Tomorrow, on November
20, 2014, an Egyptian doctor, Raslan Fadl, will for the first time in
history be sentenced because his 13-year
old patient died during a female genital mutilation (FGM) procedure;
he claims she was allergic to penicillin. [update: Fadl was
unexpectedly acquitted.]
This girl died—but she was probably viewed as among the lucky few who
have real physicians perform the mutilation in a clinic, as opposed to a
midwife or tribal elder who performs the mutilation on a mud floor and
with a rusty knife or razor blade.
We know that this horrendous practice is pandemic in the Middle East
and Africa. Some claim that FGM is not an Islamic practice per se but is,
rather, an African and tribal practice. Thus, FGM is practiced in Muslim
Africa (Egypt, Somalia, Sudan) but also in pagan and Christian Africa, as
well as nations that are a mix of Christian and Muslim (Nigeria, Sierre
Leone, Senegal, Zimbabwe, Kenya). It is also increasingly practiced in
Muslim Indonesia.
Recently, a photographer was present at the FGM "ceremonies"
of four teenage Kenyan girls of the Potok tribe. They
look terrified.
According to UNICEF,
91% of Egyptian women have been genitally mutilated. The practice is supported
by both women and men who view women as unclean and unmarriageable if
they have not been "cut." A number of brave and poignant
memoirs have been written by women who have undergone this procedure. Dr.
Nawal el-Sadawii, Ayaan
Hirsi Ali, and Soraya
Mire all come to mind.
But we also know that this practice flies under the radar in the West
as well among immigrant communities, mainly from these regions. And we
know that Western authorities have failed to stop it.
National Health Service data
suggests that up to 170,000 women and girls living in the UK may have
undergone female genital mutilation.
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Last week, Detective Chief Supt Vanessa Jardine of Manchester stated
that the genital mutilation (FGM) of girls in England should be treated
as a form of "child
abuse and not as a cultural issue."
In other words, it is a crime and perpetrators should be prosecuted.
It is not a tribal, ethnic, racial, or cultural issue to which Western
law enforcement should continue to turn a politically correct blind eye. Jardine
stated that "this is about protecting a child, not (about) being
a racist."
Recently, the British
National Health Service documented "467 new cases of FGM in
England." Half live in London. Estimates suggest that "up to
170,000 women and girls living in the UK may have undergone FGM."
FGM has been viewed as a violation of girls' and women's human rights
by international treaties. This has changed nothing. UN Secretary Ban
Ki-Moon has announced a global
campaign to end this atrocity within a decade.
I doubt this will happen. A number of countries have banned FGM,
including Egypt, in 1959 and again in 2008. It did not stop this
practice.
In 2008, a 12-year-old Egyptian girl died during a clinic surgery.
That alone—her death—is what led Egypt to again ban FGM. In other words,
the life-long agony and negative medical consequences which FGM inflicts
upon girls and women does not matter. The fact that she will never be
able to experience any sexual pleasure whatsoever does not matter. In
fact, that is the object of this mutilation: to make sure that a woman
will be less likely to have pre-marital or extra-marital sex; to ensure
that a father need not worry about his daughter's "promiscuity"
and a husband need not worry about whether her pregnancies belong to him,
and not to another man.
A woman is meant to suffer—little enough punishment to pay for the
crime of being born female.
It does not matter that she will probably be in agony each time she
urinates, has sexual intercourse or, given the massive scarring involved,
gives birth to a child. It does not matter that she may develop a fistula
and become incontinent, that she may also smell "bad" and for
this reason, be shunned by her family. It does not seem to matter that
she may later die from an infection.
These are crimes against humanity. We may not be able to stop such
crimes if they take place in Somalia, Sudan, Kenya, or Egypt. But we can
and must stop such crimes if they take place in any Western country—even
if the parents send the girl back home to be mutilated.
What might deter this practice? I fear that laws and treaties per se
will not be able to do so. Here's what might. Parents and relatives of a
mutilated girl who are complicit in the crime - including knowing about
it and failing to tell police - should be deported if they are not
citizens and jailed for many, many years if they are. This might give
pause to the next set of parents who live in the West but whose hearts
remain in the Middle East and Africa.
This is a radical suggestion. I would recommend it for honor killings
in the West as well. A family can be "shamed" by having a
non-mutilated daughter or they can be "shamed" for having
mutilated their daughter and thereby being responsible for the
deportation of their entire extended family. The choice is theirs to
make.
Phyllis Chesler, an emerita professor of psychology and women's
studies and the author of fifteen books, is a Shillman-Ginsburg fellow at
the Middle East Forum.
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