Father convicted in genital mutilation

An update on this story, by Errin Haines for AP:

LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. - An Ethiopian immigrant was convicted Wednesday of the genital mutilation of his 2-year-old daughter and was sentenced to 10 years in prison in what was believed to be the first such criminal case in the United States.

Khalid Adem, 30, was found guilty of aggravated battery and cruelty to children. Prosecutors said he used scissors to remove his daughter's clitoris in his family's Atlanta-area apartment in 2001. The child's mother, Fortunate Adem, said she did not discover it until more than a year later.

Adem, who had no criminal record, could have been sentenced to up to 40 years in prison. He held his face in his hands and wept loudly after the jury's verdict was read.

During her father's trial, the girl, now 7, clutched a teddy bear as she testified on videotape that her father "cut me on my private part."

"This child has suffered, will suffer, the rest of her life," Judge Richard Winegarden told Adem during sentencing.

Federal law specifically bans the practice of genital mutilation, but many states do not have a law addressing it. Georgia lawmakers, with the support of the girl's mother, passed an anti-mutilation law last year. But Adem was not tried under that law since it did not exist when his daughter was cut.

During the trial, Adem testified he never circumcised his daughter or asked anyone else to do so. He said he grew up in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, and considers the practice more prevalent in rural areas.

Adem's attorney acknowledged that the girl had been cut, but implied that the family of the girl's mother, who immigrated from South Africa, may have been responsible. The Adems divorced three years ago, and attorney Mark Hill suggested that the couple's daughter was coached to testify against her father by her mother, who has full custody of the child.

Adem, who cried throughout the trial and during his testimony, was asked what he thought of someone who believes in the practice. He replied: "The word I can say is 'mind in the gutter.' He is a moron."

Sure is.

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16 Comments

ISLAMSFORLOSERS | November 2, 2006 11:40 AM

More immigration will bring more such horror stories. Better get used to it unless spineless politicians finally close the doors.

Kyriakon | November 2, 2006 11:55 AM

This is not widely practiced in most of the Islamic world. It is very much a barbaric indigenous cultural practice, done among African animists as well, but we should not conflate it with Islam. There are plenty of other brutal indigenous African rituals we could talk about---lip-stretching, subincision of the male urethra, etc.---but the only reason to choose to talk about this one in this context, I think, is to use the practice to suggest that Islam is oppressive to women. I agree with that assessment, but the presentation is disingenuous.

PRCS | November 2, 2006 12:20 PM

Kyriakon,

"Those who advocate for FGM from an Islamic perspective commonly quote the following hadith to argue that it is required as part of the Sunnah or Tradition of the Prophet:

Um Atiyyat al-Ansariyyah said: A woman used to perform circumcision in Medina. The Prophet (pbuh) said to her: Do not cut too severely as that is better for a woman and more desirable for a husband."

That may be a weak hadith, and may not even concern female circumcision; and while it is not an Islamic edict, it may actually have been said by Muhammad.

I suspect that Muslims who engage in FGM likely rely upon that hadith as the basis for that ritual.

I am unaware of such a discussion in other religions (though I am not an expert).

If you know more, share.

credit man | November 2, 2006 12:25 PM

While this may not be a common practice of Muslims it still has no place in an enlightened society. I really don't care if its common or not. A Muslim did the deed and gets 10yrs for it. It also is a negative message to kill the messenger.

If this proscution prevents others from doing this "mutilation" so what. Send the negative message. If it keeps Muslims from doing it, so much the better.

The ramifications of this prosecution are many and will be spread throughout the US.

God willing, of course.

treehugger | November 2, 2006 12:41 PM

Now wait just a minute,

The mother supposedly didn't notice this for over a year.

As a mother of female children, I state that she is a badfaced liar, or one of the most stupid women on the face of the planet.

PRCS | November 2, 2006 1:18 PM

There is something not quite right, here.

The child was born in 1999.

The FGM occured in 2001.

The couple divorced in 2003, with the mother being awarded full custody at that time.

She would have us believe that, from 2001 to 2002:

She never gave her daughter a bath.
She never saw her daughter naked.
She did not ask her daughter about the nightmares in which the mother claims the daughter would scream "No, daddy, no!"
Did not inquire about the pain her daughter was in.
Did not take the daughter to a physician about the pain.

B.S.

And I haven't see any relevant news articles addressing these oddities.

Provoslavni | November 2, 2006 1:43 PM

treehugger,

I agree with you and suspect the mother may have done this to get back at her ex-husband.

Seymour Paine | November 2, 2006 1:49 PM

Robert: The points raised by PRCS were also mentioned by Gates of Vienna. Their take: the whole thing seems fishy.

KAOSKTRL | November 2, 2006 1:52 PM

On the continuum of things Muslims do this is hardly craven and deserves leniency

islamakapigeaters | November 2, 2006 1:54 PM

Adem, who cried throughout the trial and during his testimony,probibly he cried because he got caught
by non islamic laws and we all know muslims are above and do not have to obey any law but sharia law
right

MarisolJW | November 2, 2006 2:25 PM

PRCS / Seymour Paine:

I posted this one.

I agree, many aspects of the case look odd, and the text of the article makes note of that. We may not have heard the last of this case; there's always the appeals process.

In any case, though, the girl was mutilated, and this was the first criminal case of its kind in the US, so it's newsworthy as a case of Muslim immigrants bringing the practice with them.

Kyriakon --

Further to the hadith PRCS cited, prominent Islamic clerics have endorsed FGM, while others have refused to condemn it. If you click on "this story" above, Robert provided a link to an article that describes support for the practice among Islamic clerics.

Best,
Marisol Seibold
Jihad Watch News Editor

remote_control | November 2, 2006 3:17 PM

Here's the bottom line which the Kyriakons of the world seem incapable of appreciating: Islam is a powerfully influential belief system that has the ability on a sociocultural level to mold people's behavior. If Islam were a good belief system, with its sociocultural influence of unusual thoroughness of sociological breadth and psychological depth, it could easily have wiped out the practice of FGM, by making it haram, not -- as it rather has been --, at best, ambiguously permitted and at worst, actually defended.

Secondly, FGM continues to be rife in Islamic countries (including Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and there have been reports of Indonesian Muslims using it as part of their forcing conversions upon women in villages they are taking over) because that practice bears a consanguinity with the more general and amorphous misogyny and paradoxically pathological puritanism that pervades Islamic culture.

In sum, it is Kyriakon who is being disingenuous -- if he is not just plain ignorant of key facts.

atheling | November 2, 2006 5:50 PM

I hope he has fun in jail. Once the other inmates find out what he did I'm sure we'll hear more about this sick pervert.

justamomof4 | November 2, 2006 6:24 PM

A quick informative video re: FGM
link

Alarmed Pig Farmer | November 2, 2006 9:40 PM

Federal law specifically bans the practice of genital mutilation...

Great. So let our underworked federal prosecutors take up these felony cases. Can't count the times I've run into these geeks, along with aging federal judges, in strip bars over at the County seat where I live... during work hours.

... but many states do not have a law addressing it.

Bullcrap. Every state in the union has criminal codes proscribing battery and mutilation, in addition to laws proscribing practicing medicine without a license.

* 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 *

But Khalid Adem is an idiot. In a major city like Atlanta he coulda taken his daughter down to a Moslem MD toiling in a clinic at a medical arts building across the street from an inner-city hospital and had the clitorodectomy done real nice and quiet like, and under sterile conditions to boot.

If he couldn't figure that out down South, he shoulda come up to the Twin Cities where social workers would fall over themselves to steer Khalid to the right clinic, and how to get MN welfare to pay for the clit lop job.

Alert | November 4, 2006 9:06 PM

Better get used to it unless spineless politicians finally close the doors.

Posted by: ISLAMSFORLOSERS at November 2, 2006 11:40 AM

politicians don't caer either for the people who elect them to office or their country. All politicians care about are wealth and votes. How else does one explain a dumb-wit, slow yet rich timid man like dubya getting elected only to turn around on hard-working, tax-paying, honest Amricans?

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