On Thursday, April 25th, Congresswoman Carolyn B. Maloney (NY-12) (pictured center) joined elected officials. Equal Rights Amendment advocates, in response to a recent US Department of Justice decision not to defend a federal law banning FGM/C, call on Speaker Pelosi to step in to shield the regulation, and phone for the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). In addition, Congresswoman Maloney is the sponsor of H.J. Res. 35, an invoice to restart the ratification procedure of the ERA.
While the Trump Administration has decided not to protect the 1996 regulation banning FGM/C, the House or the Senate should achieve this. Accordingly, Congresswoman Maloney wrote a letter today (partial textual content under) to Speaker Nancy Pelosi to urge her to shield the law within the U.S. Court of Appeals.
In light of a federal district court docket in Michigan’s November 2018 ruling that Congress does not have the constitutional authority to criminalize FGM/C, the advocates these days highlight the need to ratify the ERA. Without this constitutional bedrock defense of ladies’ rights, courts can roll back the legal guidelines Congress passes.
“As a survivor of female genital mutilation, I am deeply disappointed by way of the choice of the Department of Justice,” added Aissata M.B. Camara, Co-Founder, There Is No Limit Foundation. “These final results undermine many years of development made with the aid of activists like me to end this harmful practice. It sends a terrible message about the price of our bodies and studies. The time to behave is now—women and girls’ rights must be a concern. I applaud all and sundry breaking their silence because FGM influences each person, and it’s a violation of human rights. Ending this practice calls for collective motion rooted in network education and sturdy rules. I understand we can acquire an international without FGM so women and ladies can live to their complete ability.”
According to Kate Kelly, Program Officer of Women’s and Girls’ Rights at Equality Now, “Placed, FGM is a human rights violation. It’s a form of gender-based violence and infant abuse. The manner may be fatal and is constantly dangerous. The decision via the DOJ not to appeal the decision in the Nagarwala case tacitly says that the federal authorities can’t skip legal guidelines to stop human rights violations. This isn’t actual. Congress does have the authority to enact an FGM regulation. In truth, it is below the worldwide duty to achieve this. Currently, 19 states do not have legal guidelines against FGM. In this very case, ladies have been taken throughout the nation to be cut. This alarming loss of federal enforcement and a hole in national laws is placing American girls and ladies at risk these days.”
Background
In 1996, Congress criminalized the exercise of woman genital mutilation (18 USC §116), which is diagnosed the world over as a contravention of the human rights of girls and women.
The World Health Organization states that the system has no health benefits for girls and women and can cause extreme bleeding and issues urinating, and later cysts, infections, headaches in childbirth, and increased risk of newborn deaths.
In the primary federal case (U.S. V. Nagarwala) brought under the FGM/Claw, a Michigan federal district court docket decide overturned the regulation on becausengress lacked the authority to legislate on this subject. The judge rejected the idea that both the Commerce Clause and worldwide treaties were sufficient to provide Congress with jurisdiction. Last Friday, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that it would no longer shield the regulation.
5 of the nine sufferers in the case were transported across kingdom lines to undergo FGM/C.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 500,000 women and girls within the United States have undergone or are susceptible to undergoing female genital mutilation.
More than one hundred 000 ladies and women who live in the 19 states that lack laws banning FGM/C are in danger without the federal FGM law.
