FGC in Muslim Communities in North America

2.0 FGC in Muslim Communities in North America 2.1 Prevalence and Policy of FGC in Canadian Muslim Communities FGC was outlawed nationally in Canada in 1997 through an amendment to the Criminal Code of Canada to prohibit all forms of FGC. Under this code, “...it is prohibited to aid, abet or counsel such assault and to interfere with genitalia for nonmedical reasons1 ”A.dditionally, the amendment clearly prohibits the transport of a minor outside of Canada for the purpose of carrying out the practice in another country where the practice is legal or less regulated. Approaching 24 years since the amendment, not a single charge of FGC has been convicted in Canada. However, The Ontario Human Rights Commission states that “...because FGM is gender-specific discrimination, internationally condemned and proscribed in international instruments to which Canada is a party ... would be in compliance with its obligations by taking steps to eradicate this pract2ice”. As of 2015, Canada has a high rate of immigration with the highest proportion of foreign-born populations among all G8 countries. Canada has received high populations of refugees from: Somalia, Egypt, Eritrea, and Sierra Leone. Countries with some of the highest prevalence rates of FGC recorded globally. Dr. Packer et al. asserts that Canada in a way is failing prone to FGC girls and women and that “... it would be naive to assume that Canadian girls are safe from the practice of genital mut3ila Atidodnit”i.onally, Packer believes that prosecutions for FGC are less common because often they require a minor to implicate her own parents in a crime, and a difficulty occurs while obtaining reliable evidence if FGC was to have been carried out abroad. As FGC is illegal in Canada, and unlike other countries such as the Netherlands, Denmark, and other European nations4 who during health screenings inquire if a woman has undergone FGC, there is no public count of women either entering Canada having undergone FGC or who have had the practice performed on them either in state or internationally while under refugee status in Canada. Packer and other national advocates for greater monitoring and restrictions of FGC in Canada continue to see Canada’s documentation and services for their “victims” of FGC as “failing”. 2.2 Prevalence and Policy of FGC in United States Muslim Communities The United States in 1996 passed House Resolution5 i9 n4o1rder to take similar measures similar to Canada in order to outlaw FGC federally. The legislation directed the Secretary of health and Human Services to compile data on the number of women living in the United States who have been subjected to FGC (regardless if that was outside or inside of the U.S.), identify U.S. communities where FGC may occur and educate individuals in said community, and to develop recommendations for the education of both youth and adults regarding FGC and its potential complications. Later in 2013, the United States passed an additional law making it illegal to knowingly transport a girl under the age of 18 for the purpose of undergoing FGC. State legislation for criminal and child endangerment charges exist in 39 states, and the District of Columbia. Sentencing differs ranging from one year to a life sentence for the “acting party” and monetary fines up to 25,000.6 State legislation and policies also work to prohibit the transportation of minors outside of the US to undergo the practice. In 2013 (the last sweeping survey/data compiled), there were at least an estimated 507,000 women in the United 7 States who had undergone FG , Coften with surveyed counts such as these, many women will not self-report either themselves or their daughters. Therefore, it can be assumed that the numbers in the United States of women who have undergone FGC are substantially higher because of larger refugee populations and under-reporting. Out of these some 500,000 women, they found that Egypt, Ethiopia, and Somalia accounted for 55% of all U.S. women and girls having undergone FGC. Additionally, this survey finds that the states with the highest prevalence of FGC also have the highest “risk factor” for youth. In 2013, three-fifths of all women and girls more prone to FGC lived in only eight states. California with the largest prone population (57,000), followed by New York (48,000), and Minnesota (44,000). Minnesota has a disproportionate number of women and girls prone to experience FGC because of its large Somani immigrant population, estimated to be over 31,000 in 2081a3nd over 52,000 as of 2019 9A.gain, these public statistics pulled from 2013 have only increased in the seven-year period, raising the number of women and girls who fall into the “at-risk” population for FGC. Minors prone to experience FGC in the United States are expected to increase with the rise of international migration in upcoming years as first and second generation refugee children are born in the United States. However, with this expectation of growth, a chance to decrease rates of FGC is still in play. Both in North America and the Middle East/Africa, increasingly over previous years the impacts of education have had an impact on prevalence rates of FGC, and generation by generation (especially with more time in the United States), mothers are becoming less likely to have their daughters undergo FGC. 2.3 Why (or why not) are women undergoing FGC in these communities? As previously mentioned, education both in the usual sense (primary and post secondary) and in North America to educate about issues regarding FGC correlate to a substantial decrease specifically in a mother’s likelihood to subject her daughter to FGC10. Take Kenya, for example, a country that has been praised in recent years for its reduction of FCE and efforts to educate women about the practice. With the mother having no education (formal, in school), the daughter is 13% likely to undergo FGC, with primary school she is only 2%, and with a secondary education, only 1% of Kenyan girls ages 0-14 are susceptible to FGC. This trend is also evident in Egypt with education (a country with 87% of prevalence of FGC in 2015). With no education, the mother is 20% likely to have her daughter undergo FGM, with primary, 16%. And with a secondary education, the changes fall to 10%, half of the initial likelihood. These trends are followed in other African countries: Nigeria, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Côte d.Ivoire, and Chad. Additionally, this same type of education in North America or government and community health classes are found to be just as effective at reducing a mother’s likelihood of having her daughter undergo FGC. Also combatting FGM, with more documentation in North America, but presumably prevalent in the Middle East/Africa, is the mother experiencing FGC for herself and not wanting her daughter to undergo the procedure. Different psychologists analyze this as the mothers acting on their own trauma with the procedure and not wanting their daughters to have the same experience as th1e1m A. different preventative trauma also exists, especially in Africa, if a family member or someone known in the mother’s life witnessed another girl or woman undergo12FGC. Testimonials of refugee women who have themselves experienced the practice or witnessed it usually have unobstructed views on the practice, “... I knew that I didn’t want my daughter to go through that. I also knew that there are millions of girls out there that are just like my daughter and no one was speaking up for13them”. 2.4 Concluding Thoughts In both the United States and Canada, measures of federal policy and education have been made in order to prevent and educate immigrant refugee populations on FGC and its potential medical aftereffects. Additionally, both the U.S. and Canada have rising numbers of refugees from countries with right prevalence rates of FGM, such as Somalia, and seem to be proactively taking measures to prevent FGC to occur in state or internationally. However, contention exists in both Canada and the United States on whether FGC is being monitored and prevented enough, with Canada having no court-convictions with FGC since 1997 and the U.S. having its first and only trial drop charges on the first appearance in court. Many continue to ask whether these two countries with obligations to their refugee populations are doing enough to prevent FGC and educate. However, the question also exists of whether or not these populations, such as the Somali, have the right to practice FGC as a “tradition”. And if their “right” can still be practiced even though it places minors in dangerous situations, and from the Western viewpoint, have no benefit. Questions such as these still circulate in North America, and will continue to do so for generations to come. Both education and personal experiences are known to be combatting FGC in the United States and Canada, and presumably can be affecting women’s decisions in the Middle East and Africa when given the choice to themselves undergo the practice or subject their daughters to it.