The Case Against Female Genital Mutilation

Today, a headline on CNN News caught my attention: "Dad guilty in first female circumcision trial in U.S." I read on to learn that an Ethiopian father had been on trial in Georgia, US, on charges of cruelty to a child, that is, his attempt at home to "circumcise" his two-year-old daughter with a pair of scissors at home. The daughter, now seven, recalls the painful experience.

This ancient African tradition of "female circumcision," more appropriately known as female genital mutilation (FGM), is widely practiced in Africa, and the World Health Organization has estimated that in 2003 alone 130,000,000 women and girls underwent the procedure, very often in non-sanitary settings. The procedure is hardly standardized and could range from removal of minimal tissue to complete mutilation of the female genitals.

Despite the headline's suggestion that this is the first FGM trial in the U.S., I would like to point out that in the mid 1990s, a 17 year-old Muslim woman from Togo who had fled her homeland in an attempt to escape her uncle's imposition to undergo FGM was imprisoned in Pennsylvania on immigration charges and baseless claims. She was awaiting deportation, when a Baha'i Lawyer and a personal friend, Layli Miller, took on her case on a pro bono basis and won on grounds of gender persecution. She was initially denied asylum, but combination of good legal work, the right connections and publicity led, first, to a parole for Ms. Kassindja, on 24 April 1996, and then, on 13 June 1996, to a complete reversal of the first judge's decision to deny asylum. Her name was Fauziya Kassindja and her story of courage and the sisterhood that ensued between Layli and Fauziya are described in a book by Layli Miller, "Do They Hear You When You Cry."

I believe that the attention this case brought to the American psyche in the past decade allowed the victory of the Ethiopian daughter against her father. This was not the first legal case involving FGM, and I am proud to say that Baha'i women are at the forefront of bringing attention to such injustices against women around the globe. Click http://www.atlantabahai.org/profile-miller-muro.php for more information about Layli Miller and her biography.