CDC: There is a Four-Fold Increase in Female Genital Mutilation in US Due to Immigration

The CDC has released a study showing the rate of female genital mutilation in the US has increased by four-fold in girls under 18.

“The increase resulted from the fact that the U.S. population originating from FGM/C [female genital mutilation and cutting] countries has risen sharply in recent decades,” observed the study, published online in the March/April edition of Public Health Reports.

The study’s researchers continued:

The estimated increase was wholly a result of rapid growth in the number of immigrants from FGM/C-practicing countries living in the United States and not from increases in FGM/C prevalence in those countries. Scientifically valid information regarding whether women or their daughters have actually undergone FGM/C and related information that can contribute to efforts to prevent the practice in the United States and provide needed health services to women who have undergone FGM/C are needed.

The sharp rise in the risk means more than half a million women and girls in the U.S. could be affected – those who were born or have a parent born in a nation in which genital mutilation is a common practice.

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The CDC states the number of females in the U.S. who have undergone the often secretive practice is not known due to unreliable data. The current study used data from 2012 – the most recent year for which it was available – and concluded that 513,000 females were at risk in that year, a threefold increase from the 168,000 at risk the last time the CDC counted in 1990.

“This shows it’s not just something that happens ‘over there’ but it’s something that happens in this country,” said Shelby Quast, American director for Equality Now, a group that works to end the practice, reports Reuters. “These girls are as American as any other girls, yet they’re facing something very, very life-altering.”

Source: Breitbart

The secretive nature of the practice has made tracking it difficult. The U.S. Surgeon General and members of Congress must speak out against the practice and make it clear that it will not and will never be tolerated in this country so long as it stands. This horrific practice must come to an end.