Recently, however, in In re Fauziya Kasinga, the Board of Immigration Appeals has taken a long-awaited first step and granted asylum to a young African woman who escaped her homeland and came to the US in order to avoid genital mutilation. Oureye Sall was born into a caste in which men traditionally work iron and women circumcise girls. But 30 years ago Ms. Sall broke with tradition, as well as her sole source of income, after her own daughter was nearly killed by the procedure. Sall never performed the operation again. The bill will now be sent to Governor Pataki for approval.
Female circumcision causes needless suffering to many infants and young girls.
She is a Sudanese anthropologist, a lecturer at the University of Connecticut at Storrs, and a visiting scholar at Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women at Brown University. She teaches that before female genital mutilation can be eradicated, the reasons it exists in the first place must be understood. Report indicates 160,000 girls women in U.S. may be genital mutilation victims More than 160,000 girls and women in immigrant communities in the United States may have been victims of the traditional practice of genital mutilation or are at risk of being subjected to it, according to a report to be published Monday by a New York state congresswoman. Information is only beginning to be collected on the prevalence of the operation to remove all or part of the female genital area, a practice most common among immigrants from Africa. It has been illegal in the United States since 1997.