Though we have not discussed this in class, female genital mutilation (FGM) is a huge global issue. The article I have attached from CNN Health goes into detail the battle native African and Middle Eastern parents, particularly mothers, now living in the US go through in deciding whether to circumcise their daughters and how they should go about doing so. The circumcision procedure is very dangerous to a woman's health as well as extremely painful. In villages such as in Africa many times the procedure is done with a shard of glass or a crude knife making the patient very susceptible to infection and even HIV, not to mention depriving them from most sexual sensation. The article proposes that perhaps to find a common ground for immigrants in America is to just "nick" the girl's genital that causes minimal health risks and still satisfies the cultural requirements. This raises the issue that the US would then be condoning this act. Also, as one mother put it, "By offering to a person to do it, it undermines the education and advocacy work being done to stop it."
Some of the question that rise from this are:
Should "nicking" be legalized in America?
Do Western or more developed nations have a right to go into practicing villages and impose their ideas and beliefs on these women when this has been a tradition and rite of passage in their culture for centuries?
What laws should be imposed in nations like the US who are making a stride to ban FGM among their country and others?
There is also a second article I attached from the New York Times explaining the Girls Protection Act which would make it illegal for parents practicing FGM to send their daughters to their native countries overseas to have the procedure done. This could create many more controversies.
http://articles.cnn.com/2010-05-21/health/america.female.genital.cutting_1_female-circumcision-cultural-beliefs-somali-immigrant/3?_s=PM:HEALTH
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/01/opinion/01thu4.html?_r=1&ref=femalegenitalmutilation
This topic conceals a broad reach into the conflict-riddled issue of speaking (or not speaking) for others. I notice this ethical dilemma frequently on a global scale, especially in cases where Westerners storm in to supposedly "save" the "barbaric" world, thus initiating an unfair system of othering. While I think FGM poses a substantial relapse for women's advocacy work, I feel the solution to this problem is less about nations like the US choosing a side by formalizing a viewpoint with legalities.
ReplyDeleteThis is an opportunity for regional educational dissemination, perhaps promulgated by parties who fully understand the cultural background of FGM, and not the time for government intervention. It will be more effective long-term to train members of this culture - specifically female members since it has been women in general who have historically spread knowledge - in the potential health hazards and negative societal consequences.
In short, it isn’t the place of the US government, or its citizens who are mostly detached from the locations in which FGM occurs, to decide if this is morally acceptable within or outside of US borders, and it would be arrogant to do so. This doesn’t mean US citizens should ignore human rights violations, but we should educate and culturally immerse ourselves before intervening.