Not for the faint of heart: Detroit MD arrested for female genital mutilation

[guacamole]

I originally heard this reported on NPR and followed up when I got home.

Not for the faint of heart because:

1. Female genital mutilation. Follow and read the links at your own peril. Nothing here is salacious unless you are seriously messed up.
B. Huffington Post.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/...b0da2ff85f1292

Try not to get triggered.

They link to second article in the Guardian which then links to statistics from the government that note that there are more than 500,000 women living in America at risk for FGM.

Triple the Risk for US Girls

Wat?

As of my writing this, the gov. website was experiencing the hug of death and so was down.

Lastly, there's also a debatable link to human rights watch that asserts that FGM is not associated with any particular religion, but is practiced by some adherents of Christianity and Judaism as well as Islam. I haven't the time to cross check those statistics (read: lazy) but figured there might be some underground dojo keyboard cage-fighters here who have better google fu:

Christians and Jews too!

Good grief.



fwiw,
guacamole

[Jedidiah]

I have never heard of any Christians or Jews doing this wicked mutilation. If it is done it is very much and exception to the norm. Not so for Islam.

[Roy]

I have never heard of any Christians or Jews doing this wicked mutilation. If it is done it is very much and exception to the norm. Not so for Islam.

Actually it's more an African cultural thing than religious - it predates both Islam and Christianity - and it is practiced by Muslims, Christians and others across Central Africa, and by their descendants in other parts of the world.

(A friend of mine works for the local education dept, and has just done a training course in who practices it and how to identify when it might occur. It's illegal in the UK)

[Jedidiah]

Actually it's more an African cultural thing than religious - it predates both Islam and Christianity - and it is practiced by Muslims, Christians and others across Central Africa, and by their descendants in other parts of the world.

So it really has no connection at all to Christianity, or Judaism. That agrees with my point. It is a cultural thing not a religious thing.

[Meh Gerbil]

Feminists already have to deal with mansplaining, they don't have time for this mutilation nonsense.

[guacamole]

Here's a link to a politifact page that cites UNICEF report to determine whether or not Reza Aslan was right to characterize FGM as a central African problem vis a vi Bill Maher's assertion that it is a Muslim problem.

fact-checking-reza-aslans-retort-bill-maher/

And here's an infographic for the too-lazy-to-click showing countries that have concentrations of FGM:

aslanCNN.jpg

fwiw,
guacamole