Feds to appeal ruling that dismissed female genital mutilation charges in Michigan

posted by Christopher W Holton Federal prosecutors say they’ll ask an appeals court to reinstate genital mutilation charges thrown out by a Detroit federal judge. https://www.twincities.com/2018/12/20/feds-to-appeal-ruling-that-dismissed-female-genital-mutilation-charges-in-michigan/

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Richard Kirk: Does the Commerce Clause Protect Female Genital Mutilation?

Three weeks ago U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman declared that the twenty-two-year-old federal law banning female genital mutilation was unconstitutional.  This ruling took Dr. Jumana Nagarwala and seven others off the legal hook for allegedly “circumcising” the genitals of nine girls from Michigan and two adjacent states, girls who were…

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Congressional Law Fails to Reach Female Genital Mutilation

posted by Christopher W. Holton by Phyllis Chesler https://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/2018/12/05/congressional-law-fails-to-reach-female-genital-mutilation/ On November 20, 2018, the United States District Court in Michigan ruled that the federal law which criminalized Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) more than twenty years ago is “unconstitutional”, and cannot be used to prosecute the doctors and mothers of the very…

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L.A. Times: If a federal ban on female genital mutilation is unconstitutional, all 50 states should ban the barbaric practice

Excerpts and link… Despite a worldwide campaign to stop the brutal practice of female genital cutting, it persists in communities across the globe, and especially in Africa and some Asian and Middle Eastern countries. Generally performed on girls under the age of 15, the procedure involves the removal of the…

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Why the U.S. ban on female genital mutilation was ruled unconstitutional

The first federal charges of female genital mutilation have been dismissed by a federal judge, whose ruling also declared the U.S. law banning the practice unconstitutional. In his 28-page decision, U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman said Congress “overstepped its bounds” in prohibiting the practice in 1996, adding that FGM is…

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With female genital mutilation ban gone, we need new legislation to protect at-risk girls

Op Ed in USA Today from Jim Sensenbrenner 500,000 girls in the U.S. are at risk of female genital mutilation. With a ban on the practice struck down, we need new legislation to protect them. For more than two decades, underage girls in this country have been federally protected from…

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It’s Now Up to States to Protect Girls from FGM

EndFGMToday: Judge Rules That Federal Female Genital Mutilation Law Is Unconstitutional and Dismisses Charges Against FGM Doctor; Now Even More Girls Will Be at Risk, Says Attorney Elizabeth Yore WASHINGTON, D.C.—District Judge Bernard Freidman last week declared the federal female genital mutilation law unconstitutional, and in the process dismissed key…

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EndFGMToday Calls on Senate to Restore Protection Against Female Genital Mutilation

Federal Judge’s Ruling Leaves Women and Girls in 23 States at Grave Risk of Barbaric Abuse, Lifetimes of Pain and Suffering WASHINGTON, D.C.—The national EndFGMTodaycampaign deplored a ruling yesterday by District Judge Bernard Friedman of Detroit that found the federal statute prohibiting female genital mutilation (FGM) to be unconstitutional. The…

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Sex charge should stick in mutilation case, feds say

full article originally posted at: http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/detroit-city/2017/10/19/sex-charge-stick-genital-mutilation-case-feds-say/106793430/ Detroit – Dr. Jumana Nagarwala digitally penetrated and cut the genitalia of 7-year-old girls and should face a sex charge in the nation’s first female genital mutilation trial, prosecutors said Wednesday. Prosecutors made the argument four weeks after the Northville doctor and Dr. Fakhruddin Attar of…

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