[lbo-talk] Female Genital Mutilation

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>On Tue, 8 Feb 2005, Michael Pollak wrote about FGM:
>
>>  This doesn't make everything easy.  It can still be quite a 
>>traumatic process
>>  and face violent opposition.  But western ethnocentrism does not 
>>seem to be a
>>  central problem anymore.  Not where the actual activism is going on in
>>  Africa.
>
>I agree, it's not a practical problem in Africa.  However, I still 
>hear calls from Western feminists that people in the U. S. should 
>"do something" about these vile practices (sanctions, cutting 
>diplomatic relations, etc).  That's what I'm ambivalent about: 
>Westerners strong-arming other societies to bring them in line with 
>our cultural practices.  (And note the term ambivalent here: I am 
>not rejecting the argument that this is a human rights issue, but 
>I'm noting some reservations and underappreciated complexity.)
>
>Miles

The US Department of State's Office of International Women's Issues 
<http://www.state.gov/g/wi/> has done its share of propaganda for US 
imperialism, e.g., concerning Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Office's "Report on Female Genital Mutilation as required by
Conference Report (H. Rept. 106-997) to Public Law 106-429 [Foreign 
Operations, Export Financing,
and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2001]" 
(<http://www.state.gov/g/wi/rls/rep/c6466.htm>), however, doesn't 
strike me as a problem (provided what's in the report is all it is 
doing and will ever do).

Fear of being subjected to female genital mutilation has been a 
ground for gaining political asylum in the United States since 1996: 
"U.S. Grants Asylum to Woman Fleeing Genital Mutilation Rite," 
<http://peacecorpsonline.org/crossroads/mutilate.html>.  The State 
Department says that "[e]stimates of the number of females who have 
been subjected to this practice range from 115 million to 130 million 
worldwide and an estimated two million girls are at risk each year" 
("Report on Female Genital Mutilation," 
<http://www.state.gov/g/wi/rls/rep/c6466.htm>, p. 4).  What if 
millions of women began to use the issue for an immigration purpose? 
That's not very likely, but it would be interesting to see how the 
Immigration and Naturalization Service would react.
-- 
Yoshie

* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/>
* Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/>
* Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/>
* OSU-GESO: <http://www.osu-geso.org/>
* Calendars of Events in Columbus: 
<http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, 
<http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/>
* Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/>
* Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/>
* Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio>
* Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>