From Fox News: More than half a million women and girls in the United States are living with the physical and psychological scars of female genital mutilation — including many in Minnesota, home to a large Somali community from a country where roughly 98% of women have undergone the procedure, according to United Nations data.
Yet despite a state law that makes performing the procedures a felony, Minnesota has never secured a single criminal prosecution under its law — raising questions about enforcement, and whether cases could be going on undetected.
Female genital mutilation, or FGM, involves the cutting or removal of parts of a female’s genital organs, typically for cultural rather than medical reasons. The practice is irreversible.
“It’s hidden — it’s a cultural practice, and who is doing the cutting could be a family member or a doctor who is also in that same culture,” said Minnesota Republican state Rep. Mary Franson.
Franson said the mutilations are carried out in tight-knit communities with such secrecy that it is exceptionally difficult to detect and confront it.
Minnesota agencies are facing scrutiny for oversight failures, including welfare and daycare fraud cases, where billions were allegedly stolen while warning signs were ignored. Critics argue officials were reluctant to investigate in culturally sensitive contexts, allowing violations to persist.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that there are over half a million survivors in the US, according to data published back in 2016.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born activist and author who survived FGM, said, “Female genital mutilation is violence against the most vulnerable — children.
“It causes infection, incontinence, unbearable pain during childbirth, and deep physical and emotional scars that never heal. Religious or cultural practices that deliberately and cruelly harm children must be confronted. No tradition can ever justify torture.”
“Only legal accountability can help reduce that risk,” Hirsi Ali continued. “I survived female genital mutilation, and I carry its scars with me. But I refuse to accept that another girl in America must endure what I did in Somalia.”
Zahra Abdalla, a Minnesota-based Somali survivor of female genital mutilation, told Fox News Digital the practice is ongoing, performed in secrecy and silence, perpetuated by family pressure.
Abdalla was between six and seven years old when she was mutilated in a refugee camp in Kenya. Adult women in her community did the procedure without anesthesia, using a razor blade.
“They tied my hands and my legs,” Abdalla said. “I remember being held down. I remember the pain — and knowing I could not escape.”`
Read more at Fox News
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