I tried to resist from commenting on this case but I fail. CNN proudly reports "Female circumcision trial may be first in U.S." You read the first paragraph of the article and fall back in shock. It reads:
The trial of an Atlanta-area father accused of circumcising his 2-year-old daughter with scissors is focusing attention on an ancient African practice that experts say is slowly becoming more common in the U.S. as immigrant communities grow.
And then you continue to read the article with urgency:
Khalid Adem, a 30-year-old immigrant from Ethiopia, is charged with aggravated battery and cruelty to children.
Human rights observers said they believe this is the first criminal case in the U.S. involving the 5,000-year-old practice.
Prosecutors say Adem used scissors to remove his daughter's clitoris in their apartment in 2001. The child's mother said she did not discover it until more than a year later.
And you immediately hate this man, you hate this ancient 5,000-year-old African practice, and you hate immigrants! The article continues on giving you so many statistics:
*130 million women worldwide had undergone circumcision,
*Knives, razors or even sharp stones are usually used,
*The tools often are not sterilized
*Often, many girls are circumcised at the same ceremony, leading to infection.
*Unknown how many girls have died from the procedure
*Common psychological side effects: Nightmares,depression,shock,feelings of betrayal
*73 percent of women in Ethiopia had undergone the procedure
*Female circumcision is most widely practiced in a 28-country swath of Africa
*more than 90 percent of women in Ethiopia are believed to have been subjected
It is too bad that all of these statistics are outdated! These studies are from 1998 to 2001 and this data comes from surveys. I don't think they surveyed the entire population of women in Ethiopia (at least 30,000,000) to get that very high percentage. Their statistical analysis has a great margin of error- it is not generalizable to the entire population, it is not reliable and I am so sorry that CNN carelessly included it into this article. I am so sorry that they also included this statement:
"I had maybe read about it [Female genital mutilation] in Reader's Digest or some other journal, but not really considered it a possibility here [the USA]," said Dr. Rose Badaruddin, the pediatrician for the Adems' daughter. "With immigration, the immigrants travel with their traditions," Bien-Aime said. "Female genital mutilation is not an exception."
Listen Bien-Aime, whomever wrote this article, and CNN: The Ethiopian population in America and other immigrants in America reacted in the same horror and shock when reading/hearing this news. It is not accepted in the culture of immigrants to mutilate a child. This article is racist and appalling. I want to further examine the idiocy of this article/case. This was reported:
The girl, now 7, also testified, clutching a teddy bear and saying that her father "cut me on my private part." Adem cried loudly as his daughter left the courtroom.
I just have one question and I think it can reflect the question of anyone with COMMON SENSE. How can any child or human remember an event that occured when they were the age of two? Furthermore, how could she have remembered that it was specifically her father who circumcised her?