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.
My thought exactly. The kid was 2 at the time. Mom never wiped her butt at any time thereafter ?
Sounds very fishy to me.
Most two year olds aren't potty trained by then and I just don't understand how a mother would not have noticed something. Perhaps it was just a matter of ignorance that she ignored the symptoms of something wrong....but it sure makes me sick to think what this child went through. And there was no-one there to protect her and after the fact to get her help and comfort her......
Since Mom herself probably went thru the same thing (is Mom also an immigrant - I don't know) you would think she'd notice, especially for the first few weeks. Someone had to be changing the bandage or looking at blood in the diaper ...
I read a different story on this that said he got 10 years in prison and five years of probation. They are going to turn him loose back into the community? Why isn't this POS being deported after he serves his sentence? Where is NOW screaming bloody murder? This guy should leave.
Did you look at this guy. He fits the mold. Bet he'll be out walking around in 2 years.
Maybe he will get his from the bubba. Except he probably would like that.
I think he/father knew about it but I'm not so sure the mother wasn't in on it herself. The custom is barbaric ...but is usually done by females.
That is only half true. Federal law bans the practice of female genital cutting, but not the practice of male genital cutting.
All children, both boys and girls, should be protected from unnecessary genital cutting.
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