Help Protect a Victim of Female Genital Mutilation

Senators Olympia Snowe and Carl Levin are leading an effort to protect a victim of persecution who was denied asylum. This is one of those immigration cases that will make you go, "What the..." But you can do more than go, "What the...", you can urge your Senator to sign on to the effort.

Here's the background.

On September 27, 2007, the Board of Immigration Appeals (Board), the highest immigration court in the country, denied protection to Alima Traore, a 28 year-old woman from Mali who was subjected to female genital cutting (FGC) as a child, and who fears a forced marriage should she be sent back to her home country. Ms. Traore had requested asylum based on her past FGC and the ongoing harms it has caused her, as well as her fear of being forced to marry her cousin.

FGC is a traditional practice whereby women and girls are forcibly subjected to the cutting and/or removal of their genitalia, causing lifelong medical, psychological, and sexual complications. (UNICEF, “Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting”, Amnesty International, “Female Genital Mutilation: A Fact Sheet”).  

Ms. Traore continues to endure the consequences of her genital cutting, including suffering ongoing medical, psychological, and sexual problems.

Why, then, did the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) deny her asylum? Because:

victims of past FGC are generally ineligible for asylum because, unlike forced reproductive sterilization (which it had previously recognized as a permanent, ongoing harm), FGC only happens to a woman once. Because the act of genital cutting could not be repeated on Ms. Traore, the Board found that the practice did not cause her – and does not cause women in general -- "ongoing harm.

So under the interpretation of our government--which relies on a ridiculously narrow reading of "ongoing harm"--victims of genital cutting are usually not eligible for asylum because it happens only once.

What about her claim based on the threat of forced marriage?

Contrary to international law, the court also rejected her forced marriage claim, characterizing the practice as harmless family tradition rather than persecution.

Harmless family tradition. That indicts itself, I believe.

Snowe and Levin have written a letter to Attorney General Mukasey in which they point out that Appeals Courts have taken a more humane and rational approach toward victims of female genital mutilation. They place the burden on the government to "rebut the presumption of persecution."

The United States Courts of Appeals have increasingly recognized that FGM rises to the level of persecution.4 The Eighth Circuit, as an example, held that once a woman demonstrates that she was subjected to FGM, “she is entitled to a presumption of a well-founded fear of persecution,”5 which requires the government to rebut the presumption of persecution by a preponderance of the evidence. The court then rejected a narrow reading of persecution and stated that, though FGM occurs one time, a woman living in and subjected to the societal discrimination that led to the initial genital mutilation can constitute a “risk of other prevalent forms of persecution.”6 The court reasonably required the government to prove that fundamental changes have occurred “to such an extent that [the woman subjected to FGM] no longer has a well-founded fear of the infliction or threat of death, torture, or injury to her person or freedom."

Snowe and Levin point out that if Traore is deported, she

faces not only ongoing physical and psychological trauma as a result of the procedure, but also the near certainty of forced marriage to her first cousin, with attendant risks of abuse and powerlessness...

And they criticize the BIA for asking only whether she would be subjected to an identical form of persecution:

In essence, the BIA’s reasoning in this case condones the abhorrent practice of performing FGM on young girls because it forces them to return to their countries of origin to face the risk of ongoing, gender-based persecution and the denial of women’s autonomy engendered in practices such as forced marriage.

Our asylum laws and practices have become far too restrictive since 9-11. The United States frequently sends people back to countries where they face almost certain persecution. This is a chance to protect a victim of persecution and to set an precedent that will help others.

So please email your Senator hereand tell them to sign onto the letter to Mukasey.