USA: FGM Typ Ia kommt vor Gericht

Women defend genital circumcision, say nothing wrong

“Khafz (circumcision) as practiced by the community involves a nick on the female foreskin covering the clitoris. No part of the clitoris is touched during the process.

Justifying girls as young as seven years old being put through the ritual, the application said boys were circumcised soon after birth, while seven was the “right age for females” as the “prepuce of the female child is sufficiently developed by that age, but not yet thickened, making the procedure simple with the least possibility of complications, minimally invasive, and harmless”.

The case is set to go to trial in January 2019.

U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman schrieb:

"No state offers refuge to those who harm children," he wrote.

"This is exactly how we got here. The defendants in this case had the victims shipped from Minnesota to Michigan, and the only way of holding them accountable for FGM was the federal statute

"This is such an underground, secretive, barbaric practice," Zarubin said. "

"This is such an underground, secretive, barbaric practice," Zarubin said. "

Female circumcision is far less invasive than male circumcision. During khafz, the clitoris is not touched at all, and great care is taken by trained medical practitioners to ensure safety at all levels.

Khafz is based on and motivated by a gender equal interpretation of the Abrahamic Covenant

The case is set to go to trial in January 2019.

We think it’s a pretty elegant solution to a pretty terrible problem,” Nilsson Troy said

Female genital mutilation, as defined by the World Health Organization, comprises of “all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons

Giddings highlighted the difference between female genital mutilation and male circumcision — one common concern raised from outlawing the procedure.

Unlike male circumcision, which has a medical benefit, female genital mutilation “is often a tool to control female sexuality,” Giddings said.

Maimonides schrieb:

Similarly with regard to circumcision, one of the reasons for it is, in my opinion, the wish to bring about a decrease in sexual intercourse and a weakening of the organ in question, so that this activity be diminished and the organ be in as quiet a state as possible.

Harvey Kellog schrieb:

A remedy [against masturbation] which is almost always successful in small boys is circumcision,especially when there is any degree of phimosis. The operation shouldbe performed by a surgeon without administering an anæsthetic, as thebrief pain attending the operation will have a salutary effect upon themind, especially if it be connected with the idea of punishment,as it may well be in some cases. The soreness which continues forseveral weeks interrupts the practice...

On Friday, the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals denied a motion by congressional leaders to defend the constitutionality of the FGM ban. It also granted the government’s and the defendant’s request to voluntarily dismiss the case.

Shannon Smith, attorney for the lead defendant in the case, Dr. Jumana Nagarwala, said the appeals court got it right.

The 6th Circuit decision, however, devastated anti-FGM activists, who fear people who support genital cutting practices on religious grounds will still get away with it in the U.S. The defendants in the Michigan case are all members of a small Indian Muslim sect known as the Dawoodi Bohra, who practice female circumcision and view it as a religious rite of passage, alleging it involves only a minor “nick.”
“We are deeply concerned that this decision puts girls at risk as the lack of a federal ban leaves an inter-state loophole and creates confusion among law enforcement charged with protecting girls from this practice,” the US END FGM/C NETWORK said in a statement Wednesday. “The decision is also discouraging to anti-FGM/C advocates, including survivors, who have been bravely speaking out against this practice, and dismantles education and prevention efforts in the U.S. and across the globe.”

DETROIT (WWJ/AP) - A judge has dismissed another charge against a Detroit-area doctor accused of female genital mutilation, leaving prosecutors with just one charge remaining.

Jumana Nagarwala was charged with conspiring with out-of-state mothers to have them travel to Michigan to engage in illicit sexual conduct.But federal Judge Bernard Friedman said the charge must be dismissed because the mothers didn't travel with the aim of engaging in sexual conduct with another person. They brought their daughters to Nagarwala.

Nagarwala has denied any crime was committed and said she performed a religious custom on girls from her Muslim sect, the India-based Dawoodi Bohra. She said she only “removed mucous” from the alleged victims and then handed the gauze to the family for burial.

Nagarawala and seven others were charged with multiple crimes when the case surfaced in 2017. But nearly all charges were dismissed last November when Friedman ruled a 1996 federal law banning female genital mutilation was unconstitutional, saying Congress didn't have the power to regulate the behavior in the first place.

It is the sense of the Congress that the United States 24District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan erred 25..... invalidating the prior version of such section 116... The commercial nature of female genital mutilation (hereinafter in this section referred to as 4‘‘FGM’’) is ‘‘self-evident,’’ meaning that the ‘‘absence of 5particularized findings’’ about the commercial nature of 6FGM in the predecessor statute did not ‘‘call into question 7Congress’s authority to legislate’’ (Gonzales v. Raich,...). Nevertheless, the Congress has elected 9to amend the FGM statute to clarify the commercial nature of the conduct that this statute regulates. But, by 11doing so, Congress does not hereby ratify the district court’s erroneous interpretation in Nagarwala

Unnecessary medical procedures on children will not be tolerated.

Title 18, United States Code, Section 116(d), defines FGM as circumcision, excision, or infibulation of “the whole or any part of the labia majora or labia minora or clitoris of another person who has not attained the age of 18 years.”

Title 18, United States Code, Section 116(d), defines GM as circumcision, excision, or infibulation of “the whole or any part of the labia majora or labia minora or clitoris or penis or scrotum of another person who has not attained the age of 18 years.”

Forum schrieb:

A subsequent medical exam showed the girl's genitalia had a small incision and a small tear

Forum schrieb:

If convicted, Nagarwala and Fakhruddin Attar face up to life in prison

Michigan Jewish History schrieb:

Bernard A. Friedman was born in 1943 in Highland Park, Michigan. His father instilled

in him strong Jewish values — in particular, the need to do the right thing.

[*]Female circumcision as practised by Dawoodi Bohra women is less invasive than male circumcision as legally practised by Muslims and Jews.
[*]Why should girls be excluded from the Abrahamic circumcision tradition? If it is legal for boys why shouldn’t it be legal for girls?

Shweder schrieb:

They [Dawoodi Bohra] are a small, highly educated
and cosmopolitan Shia Muslim denomination that has distinguished itself with its
gender egalitarian orientation to education and the high participation of Dawoodi
Bohra women in various professional occupations.
I mention this last fact mindful of the neocolonial sounding discourse of

Shweder schrieb:

Right now, Dawoodi Bohra women are under global attack.

In the United States the prosecutions can be dated to 12 April 2017. Dr Jumana
Nagarwala, a 44-year-old native born American physician trained at Johns Hopkins
Medical School, a mother of four children, and an admired member of the Dawoodi

The prosecution of Dawoodi Bohra women
Bohra religious community who performed circumcisions at a local medical clinic
was arrested by the FBI in the Eastern District of the State of Michigan. She was
charged with ‘female genital mutilation’ under a 1996 federal statute by that name
and accused of conspiring to transport children across state lines to commit a sexual
offence and making false statements to a federal agent.

Legal assaults of this type (focused exclusively on the female side of a gender-
inclusive custom) have seemed unfair, inconsistent or even hypocritical to some.

By most accounts the Dawoodi Bohra circumcision procedure for girls
amounts to a nick, abrasion, piercing or small cut restricted to the female foreskin or
prepuce (often referred to as ‘the clitoral hood’ or in some parts of Southeast Asia as
the ‘clitoral veil’).

So the question arises: if the practice is legal for the
gander [Ganter] why should it be banned for the goose [Gans]?

if the practice is legal for the

gander [Ganter] why should it be banned for the goose [Gans]?

DETROIT — A judge dismissed a new batch of charges Tuesday in the government’s investigation of genital mutilation against girls in a Muslim sect, saying prosecutors in Detroit retaliated after major courtroom losses.

It’s another blow for the government, which broke new ground in 2017 when it charged a Detroit-area doctor with performing genital mutilation at a suburban clinic. The move was recognized as the first significant use of a federal law banning the practice.

The fifth indictment was “in retaliation for defendants’ past success in having other charges dismissed,” Friedman said. “Such vindictive or retaliatory prosecution is a due process violation of the most basic sort.”

The $4.5 million bond is believed to be the largest ever set in the U.S. District Court for Eastern Michigan.

We are very disappointed in the Court’s decision today dismissing the indictment. We take our duty to protect children very seriously.

Child victims are vulnerable and they deserve our best efforts to hold accountable those who harm them.

Jumana (given name)


People with the name include:

Jumana Nagarwala, an Indian-American physician who, in 2017, became the first person charged under the United States law criminalizing female genital mutilation

In April 2017, Jumana Nagarwala, a doctor working at the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, was charged with allegedly performing FGM at the Burhani Medical Clinic in Livonia, Michigan.^[42][43] This was the first federal prosecution for female genital mutilation in US history.^[44] Nagarwala, who denied the charges, was accused of performing FGM on two girls who had traveled from Minnesota with their mothers.^[42] The owners of the clinic where it was performed, Dr. Fakhruddin Attar and his wife, Farida Attar, were also arrested and charged with FGM for conspiring with Nagarwala and letting her use their clinic.^[45][42] But when the 1996 federal law that criminalized female genital mutilation was declared unconstitutional in 2018, all charges against the Attars and Nagarwala other than conspiracy and obstruction were dismissed

In addition to its prevalence in immigrant communities in the US, FGM was considered a standard medical procedure in America for most of the 19th and 20th centuries.[6] Physicians performed surgeries of varying invasiveness to treat a number of diagnoses, including hysteria, depression, nymphomania, and frigidity. The medicalization of FGM in the United States allowed these practices to continue until the end of the 20th century, with some procedures covered by Blue Cross Blue Shield Insurance until 1977

...whoever, in any circumstance described in subsection (d), knowingly—
performsfemale genital mutilation on another person who has not attained the age of 18 years;....

shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both.

For purposes of this section, the term “female genital mutilation” means any procedure performed for non-medical reasons that involves partial or total removal of, or other injury to, the external female genitalia, and includes—
(1)... the partial or total removal of ...the prepuce or clitoral hood;

It shall not be a defense to a prosecution under this section that female genital mutilation is required as a matter of religion, custom, tradition, ritual, or standard practice.

In addition to children with hypospadias, states now advocating bans on gender-affirming healthcare for trans adolescents allow medically unnecessary genital surgeries on another group of young males without their consent.

This group includes children who have no known differences of sex development nor any medical problems affecting their genitals. The surgery - which occurs over one million times a year in US hospitals - is almost always done for primarily cultural, not strictly medical reasons.

It is circumcision, or cutting and removing the penile foreskin.

The foreskin is often dismissed in US culture as insignificant. However it makes up about 30 percent of the skin system of the human penis. Similar to the female labia and clitoral hood, it is an elastic erogenous tissue that covers and protects the rest of the organ, unless it is removed. Studies suggest it is the most sensitive part of the penis to light touch.

While some American doctors claim that newborn circumcision carries health benefits such as reducing the risk of urinary tract infection (UTI), European doctors dispute these benefits, arguing there's no medical justification for non-consensual genital surgery on healthy minors.

These doctors stress that circumcision in early childhood, when the organ is not fully developed, carries non-trivial risk. Recent data from California show that 1 in every 100 newborn circumcisions results in late-occurring complications, most of which require surgical repair.

Increasingly, scholars and advocates criticise what they see as biased or selective expressions of concern for children's bodily integrity.

Scholars who study the ethics of genital cutting are increasingly of the view that the same moral and legal principles should apply in this area, regardless of sex or gender.

They argue the key is consent.

For children who are too young to consent, if a genital surgery is not necessary to preserve the child's physical health, they suggest it should not be performed. Doctors, they argue, should not agree to elective labiaplasties, ritual nicking, 'normalising' surgeries for hypospadias or intersex traits, or penile circumcisions in non-consenting minors.