Rise in number of female circumcisions in U.S.
The practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) has long been frowned upon by Western society. It is all too common in African countries, and can lead to devastating health issues for the girl involved.
America banned FGM back in 1997, but according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, female genital mutilation is on the rise in the states.
It is hard to believe this is the real number because of how much [FGM-practicing] communities are growing, especially in the last two or three years,” said Mariama Diallo, African community specialist at Sanctuary for Families, a New York-based non-profit dedicated to helping domestic violence and trafficking victims. Her organization could only extrapolate using census data when it issued a report on the growing problem last year. […] Support for victims is also comparatively poor in the U.S., health workers say. Nour in Boston and Johnson in Arizona run the only two clinics dedicated to supporting FGM victims in the U.S.
Comparatively the U.K. – with only a fifth of the population of the U.S. – has 15 specialist clinics. British midwife Comfort Momoh, who runs one such operation, recently visited the U.S. to research American facilities.
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