https://www.theguardian.com/society/...-girls-at-risk
A historic ruling that declared unconstitutional a US law banning female genital mutilation (FGM), and dropped key charges against practitioners was an “outrageous” blow to the rights of tens of thousands of girls at risk of the abuse, according to campaigners.
US law banning female genital mutilation declared unconstitutional
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US district judge Bernard Friedman, in Michigan, ruled on Tuesday that Congress lacked authority, under the commerce clause of the US constitution, to adopt the 1996 law and that the power to outlaw FGM lay with individual states. “As despicable as this practice may be, it is essentially a criminal assault,” Friedman wrote, in a ruling late on Tuesday. Congress had “overstepped its bounds by legislating to prohibit FGM”, as it had no demonstrated effect on interstate commerce, he said.
The decision, in the first federal case to involve FGM, dismissed the main charges in a case against Jumiana Nagarwala, a doctor who performed the procedure on nine girls, aged 7-13, from Michigan, Illinois and Minnesota at another doctor’s clinic in Livonia, on the outskirts of Detroit. The prosecution said she may have performed the procedure on as many as 100 girls. Four of the eight defendants, including three of the four mothers accused of subjecting their daughters to the procedure, were dismissed in the case. The defendants are members of a small Muslim Dawoodi Bohra community. The doctors faced lengthy prison sentences on conspiracy charges.
“While the rest of the world is moving forwards on FGM, the US is moving backwards,” Shelby Quast, American director of the international campaign group for women’s and girls’ rights, Equality Now, told the Guardian on Wednesday.
A spokesman for the US attorney in Detroit said the government would review the ruling before deciding on whether to appeal.
FGM is a common practice among many northern and southern African countries, but it is banned or criminalised by at least 59 countries and several international treaties. It is considered a human rights violation by the World Health Organisation. It typically involves the partial or total removal of the clitoris and is used to control the sexuality of women and girls.
Campaigners said the ruling dealt a heavy blow to the rights of women and girls and could effectively turn the 23 US states that do not have anti-FGM laws into “destination states” for cutting.
They say it will affect tens of thousands of girls at risk of the abuse across the US. A study by the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control estimated that 513,000 women and girls across the US were at risk or have been subjected to FGM.
International campaign group Equality Now described the ruling as a “federal blessing” on FGM.
Quastsaid: “What it really shows is that girls are not being prioritised. I have had numerous calls from survivors’ groups with people in tears. The message to women and girls is that, when survivors are finally coming forward, sharing their stories, they are being completely disregarded…
While the rest of the world is moving forwards on FGM, the US is moving backwards.”
Well this is interesting. USA accuses other countries for practising FGM but is seems that you can go in USA and practise FGM legally.