The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that “more than 500,000 women and girls in the United States are at risk of or have been subjected to FGM/C (Female Genital Mutilation or Cutting).”
The CDC says that some of these half million women and girls are cut in the United States. Others are sent abroad for mutilation.
Today is the International Day of Zero Tolerance for FGM, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and other U.S. agencies are calling on the “global community” for an end to this abuse.
In the United States, FGM/C is a serious crime and officials have prosecuted individuals who performed the procedure.
FGM/C is also a form of child abuse.
Those who engage in this criminal procedure can be convicted and serve prison time. There are also immigration consequences.
Last April, three people in Michigan were charged in connection with the crime. Breitbart News reported that Dr. Fakhruddin Attar and his wife Farida Attar was arrested in the Detroit suburb of Livonia, Michigan. Dr. Jumana Nagarwala was arrested the week before. The arrests represented the first prosecution of FGM/C in the U.S.
The list of Attar’s victims began after two seven-year-old Minnesota girls were brought across state lines to have the mutilating procedure done at Attar’s Burhani Medical Clinic.
As reported by Breitbart News, the:
practice [is] common primarily in Muslim countries, particularly those in Africa. For example, UNICEF estimates that 98% of Somali girls and 87% of Egyptians have endured the procedure.