Female Circumcision on the Rise in U.S.

Some of the blunt and dirty tools used to carry out female circumcision in Tanzania, where 15 percent of women and girls are cut. The rate is far higher in other parts of Africa: In Burkina Faso, where Marie was cut, the rate is 73 percent. Somalia has the highest rate at 98 percent.

This barbaric third world crime against young girls must be stopped from taking place on American soil.  90% of all female genital mutilation takes place within the Muslim communmity.  Once again, when you import Islam you import all that comes with it. 

FROM NBCNEWS.COM:

Horrific Taboo: Female Circumcision on the Rise in U.S.

By Annabel Roberts and Marian Smith

When Marie was two years old, a woman in her village in Africa cut off her clitoris and labia. Now 34 and living thousands of miles away in New York, she is still suffering.

“I have so many problems, with my husband, with sex, with childbirth,” she told NBC News, withholding her real name to protect her identity. “The consequences on my life are all negative, both physically and psychologically."

The practice of Female Genital Mutilation is common across much of Africa, where it is believed to ensure sexual purity before marriage. But Marie says FGM is also “very common” in some communities in America.

“The pressure to get daughters cut is great,” she said.

    “We need to make it something that can be discussed.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, at least 150,000 to 200,000 girls in the U.S. are at risk of being forced to undergo cutting. The CDC says “at risk” because there are no actual records of the practice, only estimates – and old estimates at that. Its latest data date to 1997, the year after it was banned in the U.S.

But citing anecdotal evidence from health professionals and frontline workers, experts who work with victims and their communities say FGM is on the rise.

"It is hard to believe this is the real number because of how much [FGM-practicing] communities are growing, especially in the last two or three years," said Mariama Diallo, African community specialist at Sanctuary for Families, a New York-based non-profit dedicated to helping domestic violence and trafficking victims. Her organization could only extrapolate using census data when it issued a report on the growing problem last year.

Immigration to the U.S. from countries in Africa quadrupled between 1990 and 2011 from 360,000 to 1.6 million according to a recent report released by New York City’s planning department.

“The numbers need to be updated – but this needs funding and no one is interested,” said Dr. Nawal Nour, founder of the African Women’s Health Practice at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Lack of Prosecutions

There are different degrees of FGM, the most severe form being the narrowing of the vaginal opening by repositioning the labia and stitching up the opening, sometimes leaving a hole the size of a matchstick for the passing of urine and menstrual flow.

The cutting is often carried out without anesthetic on girls between infancy and the age of eight. Victims can suffer numerous physical and mental health problems: severe abdominal pain, vaginal and pelvic infections, pain during sex, complications during childbirth.

In Phoenix, Arizona, a staggering 98 percent of Somali women being treated at the Refugee Women’s Health Clinic have been circumcised, founder Dr. Crista Johnson said. She estimates the Somali community is at least 12,000-strong.

Article continues HERE.