There ought to be a law against this type of abuse.

ABSTRACT

PIP Female genital mutilation occurs in parts of the world where ritual overwhelms reason and where women's sexuality is regarded as dangerous. Some 100-130 million women worldwide have been mutilated, with high prevalence in countries like Somalia, Ethiopia, and Egypt. Now female genital mutilation has been imported with international migrants to the US. While legislators first refused to believe that such abuse could be happening in the US, the evidence began mounting through accounts from school teachers, physicians, and immigrants themselves. The practice has been outlawed in much of Europe where women have been prosecuted for child abuse, but as of 1995, only three US states had made it a felony. US response has been muted by ignorance, by a perverse respect for cultural differences, and by a bizarre belief that female genital mutilation is comparable to male circumcision. Congress is considering two bills that would make it illegal to perform female genital mutilation on a child in the US and could provide funding to determine the prevalence of the problem. Representative Patricia Schroder, a co-sponsor of the legislation, also hopes to amend immigrant legislation to require that all new immigrants be informed that they can not import this practice to the US. The US must take a stand against female genital mutilation on its own shores and throughout the world.^ieng