In 28 states of America passed laws criminalizing female circumcision

Two hundred million living girls and women were circumcised. This mutilated operation is called a human rights violation by both the UN and the World Health Organization.

Фото: Depositphotos

Human rights activists in various countries oppose this practice. Hundreds of reports have been issued stating that such operations on the genitals of girls not only cause long-term harm to women's health, but also are a form of gender discrimination from an early age. In 30 countries of the world, this operation is prohibited by law. There is a similar law in the United States. However, recently a federal judge of Detroit declared him unconstitutional and left without punishment the doctors of Michigan who carried out such operations.

Michigan doctors were the first in the history of the country to be accused of violating a US federal law 23 years ago, which included a fine or a prison term of up to five years for female circumcision to minors. However, Detroit District Judge Bernard Friedman (Bernard Friedman) declared this Congressional law of 1996 of the year unconstitutional. It is important to note that this decision applies only to the Eastern District of Michigan.

Human rights defender and professor at the Medical Faculty of Georgetown University Ranit Mishori (Ranit Mishori) urges his colleagues not to be silent about such offenses: “This is a violation of the rights of the child - the right to physical integrity, right to health. Girls do these mutilated surgeries without their consent, bring them into the room and forcibly cut off parts of their genitals. This is torture. Besides, this is a psychological trauma. ”

The defendants ’lawyer, Mary Chartier, in an electronic correspondence with the Present Tense program emphasized: the judge’s decision has all legal grounds. According to Chartier, "Congress had no right to pass such a law." The lawyer is confident that circumcision is not a sexual procedure. “Circumcision of boys is not a procedure of a sexual nature, and circumcision of girls is not a procedure of a sexual nature,” she says.

World Health Organization experts say that comparing male and female circumcision is wrong. So, Christina Pallitto from the Department of Reproductive Health and Research, WHO is confident that “the motives and goals of circumcision are completely different for men and women. In the case of women, there is no health benefit. There are no medical indications. ”

Фото: Depositphotos

The defendants, according to media reports, belonged to the Indian Muslim sect, in which it is customary for girls to remove external genitalia. They view it as a religious ritual. And although the practice of circumcision of girls is often associated with Muslim traditions, according to a WHO expert, the real reason lies in the traditions prevalent in the closed communities of people of different religions.

American doctors face the consequences of female circumcision when examining patients who once immigrated to the US from the countries of the Middle East, Africa, and Southeast Asia. Ranit Mishori recalls that she first learned what it was when a woman entered the hospital in the active phase of labor: “She was from Djibouti. And what was my surprise when I discovered that her genitals are deformed. Neither me nor my supervisor has ever had such experience before. Childbirth was very difficult. Fortunately, the woman and the child survived. ”

Difficult childbirth is only one of the consequences of removing the external female genitalia. Bleeding, pain, infection, sepsis, gynecological diseases, infertility ... This is a form of gender discrimination from an early age.

According to Ranit Mishori, this operation "makes women more submissive, they are deprived of the opportunity to enjoy sexual intimacy, they are deprived of their voices, they control their body, health, and emotional state." “Only social changes, education, in the long run, can change the norms in communities where female circumcision has been practiced for more than one generation,” the doctor and human rights activist are confident.

In the US, hundreds of thousands of underage girls are at risk.

After federal law was declared unconstitutional in the Eastern District of Michigan, laws passed in different states criminalizing female circumcision. Today it is a crime in 28 states. For example, in Michigan, it is now possible to receive up to 15 years in prison for committing or assisting in such operations. But this law will be applied only when considering new cases. Doctors who have already been tried under the federal law on female circumcision will not be affected by this law.

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