Immigrant father on trial for genital cutting

[Sojiita]

Immigrant father on trial for genital cutting
Man accused of circumcising 2-year-old daughter faces 40 years in prison

Updated: 4:46 p.m. ET Oct 27, 2006
LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. - The trial of an Atlanta-area father accused of circumcising his 2-year-old daughter with scissors is focusing attention on an ancient African practice that experts say is slowly becoming more common in the U.S. as immigrant communities grow.

Khalid Adem, a 30-year-old immigrant from Ethiopia, is charged with aggravated battery and cruelty to children. Human rights observers said they believe this is the first criminal case in the U.S. involving the 5,000-year-old practice.

Prosecutors say Adem used scissors to remove his daughter’s clitoris in their apartment in 2001. The child’s mother said she did not discover it until more than a year later.

“He said he wanted to preserve her virginity,” Fortunate Adem, the girl’s mother, testified this week. “He said it was the will of God. I became angry in my mind. I thought he was crazy.”

The girl, now 7, also testified, clutching a teddy bear and saying that her father “cut me on my private part.” Adem cried loudly as his daughter left the courtroom.

Testifying on his own behalf Friday, Adem said he never circumcised his daughter or asked anyone else to do so. He said he grew up in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, and considers the practice more prevalent in rural areas.

Adem, who removed a handkerchief from his pocket and cried at one point during his testimony, was asked what he thought of someone who believes in the practice. He replied: “The word I can say is ‘mind in the gutter.’ He is a moron.”

His lawyer, Mark Hill, acknowledged that Adem’s daughter had been cut. But he implied that the family of Fortunate Adem, who immigrated from South Africa when she was 6, may have had the procedure done.

The Adems divorced in 2003, and Hill suggested that the couple’s daughter was encouraged to testify against her father by her mother, who has full custody.

If convicted, Adem, a clerk at a suburban Atlanta gas station, could get up to 40 years in prison.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, using figures from the 1990 Census, estimated that 168,000 girls and women in the U.S. had undergone the procedure or were at risk of being subjected to it.

The State Department estimates that up to 130 million women worldwide had undergone circumcision as of 2001. Knives, razors or even sharp stones are usually used, according to a 2001 department report. The tools often are not sterilized, and often, many girls are circumcised at the same ceremony, leading to infection.

It is unknown how many girls have died from the procedure, either during the cutting or from infections, or years later in childbirth.

Nightmares, depression, shock and feelings of betrayal are common psychological side effects, according to the federal report.

The report estimated that 73 percent of women in Ethiopia had undergone the procedure, based on a 1997 survey.

Taina Bien-Aime, executive director of Equality Now, an international human rights group, said female circumcision is most widely practiced in a 28-country swath of Africa. She said more than 90 percent of women in Ethiopia are believed to have been subjected to the practice, and more in places like Egypt and Somalia
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15447708/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------sickening.

[SuperHeroTights]

all I can say is "OUCH!"

[sweetrebel]

The mother didn't notice for a year? WTF? How would you not notice your child had been circumsized? There had to be bleeding and who knows what it looked like while healing?

[Elvira]

^ ^I know. Who the heck gave the child a bath?

[Lobelia]

Incredibly disturbing. It tempts me to have an irrational hatred of men. It's difficult to accept that there are millions of men who view women as a subspecies. They are allowed to have sexual pleasure, but the women are not. I know women very frequently perpetuate this practice on little girls, but it's based on the premise that female sexuality is unacceptable beyond the parameters set by potential husbands, and that females are incapable of controlling their sexual urges unless the offending part is removed. It's control over women, and it's despicable.

[KD]

Well, cut the dads entire glans off (the head, NOT THE SKIN of his penis.) We'll see if he likes it.

[buttmunch]

I think circumcision for either sex is disgusting.

[crumpet]

I understand that many people nowadays oppose male circumcision for other reasons. However, I don't agree with those who say it's just as bad as female circ. just becasue the motives and methods are so different. With women, it's done exclusively for the purpose of depriving them of sexual pleasure and making sure they are faithful ( and subservient) to the men who own them. It's also done under generally unsanitary circumstances and many women/girls die from it. This is not an attack on those who oppose male circumcision but it bothers me when people claim it's the same thing (and I know some people who have said that) when for many reasons it is nowhere near the same thing.

That said, I'm really sick of people who come here for a better life, presumably to escape violence or political oppression and when they move here they bring all the negatives from their culture with them and don't want to follow our laws and customs. It's ironic they left their homeland because they were oppressed but then they want to oppress people here(almost always women in one way or the other) and think they have the right because it's their culture. Well, if your culture conflicts with our laws, tough shit.

[Lil]

I don't understand why anybody would chop bits off their babies.