We like to think that when people immigrate to the U.S. or European countries from the third world that they leave behind some of the more barbaric of their customs and embrace a more enlightened set of cultural mores. Unfortunately, as
this article points out, that's often not the case.
When Marie was two years old, a woman in her village in Africa cut off her clitoris and labia. Now 34 and living thousands of miles away in New York, she is still suffering.
“I have so many problems, with my husband, with sex, with childbirth,” she told NBC News, withholding her real name to protect her identity. “The consequences on my life are all negative, both physically and psychologically."
The practice of Female Genital Mutilation is common across much of Africa, where it is believed to ensure sexual purity before marriage. But Marie says FGM is also “very common” in some communities in America.
“The pressure to get daughters cut is great,” she said.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, at least 150,000 to 200,000 girls in the U.S. are at risk of being forced to undergo cutting. The CDC says “at risk” because there are no actual records of the practice, only estimates – and old estimates at that. Its latest data date to 1997, the year after it was banned in the U.S. But experts who work with victims and their communities say FGM is on the rise.
The article goes on to describe the various procedures that are employed and how extensive the practice is.
There are different degrees of FGM, the most severe form being the narrowing of the vaginal opening by repositioning the labia and stitching up the opening, sometimes leaving a hole the size of a matchstick for the passing of urine and menstrual flow.
The cutting is often carried out without anesthetic on girls between infancy and the age of eight. Victims can suffer numerous physical and mental health problems: severe abdominal pain, vaginal and pelvic infections, pain during sex, complications during childbirth.
And to what purpose is this horrific abuse inflicted on little girls? To insure that they have less motivation to be sexually unchaste and unfaithful to their husbands. It's ironic that left-wing media outlets like MSNBC and others tirelessly promote the myth that there's a Republican "war on women," a war that exists entirely in the imaginations of the folks who make the charge, while every day a real war on women is occurring in immigrant communities around this country about which the left, or at least much of it, has little or nothing to say. Why is that?
