West Moves to Outlaw African Rite for Women

As Africans immigrate to the West, they are bringing their foods, music, politics and traditions--including the practice of circumcising their daughters.

Many Westerners are appalled, denouncing the ancient rite as barbaric and calling it genital mutilation.

A number of countries, among them Belgium, Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, Sweden and Switzerland, has outlawed the practice. But because immigrants mostly keep quiet about the custom, the laws are poorly enforced.

The United States is just beginning to respond.

In a key policy ruling June 13, the U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals granted asylum to Fauziya Kasinga, an 18-year-old who said she feared she would be forced to undergo circumcision if she were sent back to Togo.

A Nigerian woman living illegally in Portland, Ore., was spared deportation in 1994 to protect her two American-born daughters from forced operations.

In May, the U.S. Senate approved an amendment to make genital mutilation of females 18 and younger punishable by up to five years in prison. The House is expected to approve similar legislation.

Two states, Minnesota and North Dakota, have passed laws making the practice a felony unless it is medically necessary.

The impact of such laws is questionable, however.

The practice was outlawed in Britain in 1985, but surgeons still do it. It also is illegal in France, but a study concluded that thousands of women and girls there had been circumcised.

In regions where female circumcision is a cultural tradition, women’s advocacy groups are trying to end the practice or at least lessen its severity.

Women’s groups in Sudan are urging mothers to take their daughters to doctors for the ritual and encouraging physicians to do no more than clip the tip of the clitoris.