Posted on 11/02/2006 5:38:09 AM PST by COUNTrecount
LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. -- It has happened to 130 million women and girls around the world, the State Department has estimated, but Wednesday may have been the first time a U.S. court was called on to exact justice for one of them.
The victim, now 7, was just 2 when her genitals were cut, but she remembered the horrific act well enough to testify at her father's trial. He "cut me on my private part," she said, clutching a teddy bear in her videotaped testimony.
Khalid Adem was convicted Wednesday of aggravated battery and cruelty to children, though he had insisted he was innocent and denounced female genital mutilation, which is common in his homeland of Ethiopia.
His attorney, Mark Hill, asked that his client's culture be taken into account. "We don't quite understand it here, but in Ethiopia, it used to be the normal thing."
Superior Court Judge Richard Winegarden rejected that argument, sentencing Adem to 10 years in prison and describing his crime as "unimaginable."
"This child has suffered, will suffer, the rest of her life," he told Adem.
Prosecutors said Adem, 30, 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.
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.
The trial is believed to be the first criminal case in the United States involving female genital multilation.
"We think the international community will look at this case very carefully," said Taina Bien-Aime, executive director of the New York-based international human rights group Equality Now. "We hope that this case is really a call to action."
Bien-Aime said female circumcision is most widely practiced in a 28-country swath of Africa, and that more than 90 percent of women in Ethiopia are believed to have been subjected to the practice.
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 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."
The practice crosses ethnic and cultural lines and is not tied to a particular religion. Activists say it is intended to deny women sexual pleasure. In its most extreme form, the clitoris and parts of the labia are removed and the labia that remain are stitched together.
Knives, razors or even sharp stones are usually used, according to a 2001 department report. The tools are frequently not sterilized, and often, many girls are circumcised at the same ceremony, leading to infection.
It is unknown how many girls have died from the procedure, either during the cutting or from infections, or years later in childbirth. Nightmares, depression, shock and feelings of betrayal are common psychological side effects, according to a 2001 federal report.
I'd be interested to know what the truth is here. Could be that the father really did it; could be that the child was coached to say he did. I believe that in Africa it is usually the women who do it to their girls, or authorize some old crone in the village to do it. And mothers have been known to coach their children to say they have been abused.
Multiculturalism. Isn't it just wonderful?
< /sarc>
Get them out of here !
Should have been life. That is what his daughter got.
I live in this area and have followed this case closely. There is one question that has never been asked so I have always wondered why is it that the Mother says she didn't know this happened until a year later. A doctor testified that the child would be in severe pain...there would be bleeding for awhile......the child would have trouble urinating etc. Perhaps I missed it but have never heard that there was any time the Mother was not living with the child.
What a horrible ordeal for a child to go through....barbaric comes to mind................
OMG, that is what I was going to say.
Multiculturalism...the answer to all of our prayers.
(sarc)
I've seen pictures (World Health Organization) of 4 Egyption men holding a little girl by her arms and legs while she wails in terror at the imminent cutting. Men do it too.
Diversity is our strength.
I'm sure the Democrat, Ramsey Clark, will head-up this guy's appeal.
Bastard gets 10 years, she gets life.
They should mutilate his genitals without anasthesia (sp?) and then throw a bucket of ammonia on this lap afterwards.... Cases like this make me pray to God to resist the temptation to beat guys like this to within an inch of their life (#4 - Thou Shalt Not Kill) with a Lousiville Slugger.... Extra warm spot in hell for this guy...
From what i understand they are also going through a nasty divorce, and the woman suddenly brings it up a year later after she wants custody.
From what I read in the paper, it sounds more like the mother and grandmother are responsible, but I course what the paper says is not often totally accurate.
Why didn't he just kill her and claim a late term abortion? He would have had legions of ACLU lawyers justifying his actions.
This subject was a Law and Oder episode (I forget which version). It was very sad.
His new boyfriend Bubba is getting ready for him.
Scumbag - hope he gets to be some bubba's girlfriend in prison. Wonder how much the guards will care.....
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