Second Muslim Doctor Arrested for Child Genital Mutilation

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They were charged with three federal criminal counts including conspiracy, female genital mutilation and aiding and abetting.

Nagarwala's case marked the United States' first federal prosecution of FGM.

A grand jury in the United States on Wednesday, indicted an India-born doctor and his wife along with another Indian-origin woman doctor in a first-of-its kind federal prosecution involving female genital mutilation (FGM) of two minor girls. Attar, his wife and Nagarwala were already inside.

In the wake of Nagarwala's arrest, authorities in Hennepin County, Minnesota, immediately filed a protection petition on behalf of one of the young victims, and that petition included the girl's statements. She was denied bond last week and remains jailed after the judge concluded she was a danger to society and a flight risk.

Federal investigators say she may have performed FGM on other girls between ages 6 and 8, including some from MI, from 2005 to 2007. "The glove, which had the minor victim's name written on it, was retrieved by agents after a search of the clinic".

The Attars and Nagarwala belong to a Muslim sect called Dawoodi Bohra.

Nagarwala has claimed through her lawyer that she did not engage in any actual cutting, but rather that she removed a membrane from the genital area using a "scraper" and gave it to the parents to bury in the ground as part of a religious custom within the Dawoodi Bohra community.

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But State Department spokesman Mark Toner said "these kinds of actions frankly harm the coalition's efforts" against IS. YPG spokesman Redur Khalil confirmed the visit to The Associated Press.

Ms Quast told the story of how her group and others worked with the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists to say that labioplasty, the medical term for FGM, for those under 18 is actually a crime in the US. Touching or harming a child's genitals for anything other than medical purposes is a crime in the U.S. Readers would no doubt bristle if the Times published a piece calling any other kind of child abuse a "practice" that is "widely seen" as brutal.

Nagarwala's employer, the Henry Ford Health System, told CNN in a statement, "the alleged criminal activity did not occur at any Henry Ford facility".

According to New York Times Health Editor Celia Dugger, journalists shouldn't be using the term "female genital mutilation" to describe female genital mutilation. Any violation of US law is counter to instructions to our community members. The Detroit Free Press reported that Dr. Attar and Nagarwala's husband have served as treasurers for the Anjuman-e-Najmi mosque, which is Michigan's only Dawoodi Bohra mosque.

Court documents say the girls, each from Minnesota, told investigators their mothers said they were going to Detroit for "a special girls' trip". She also said the widely used term (FGM) is "culturally loaded" in the explanation, which came as a result of inquiries from The Daily Caller News Foundation regarding a reporter's decision to use the term "cutting" in a recent story about a doctor in MI.

Nagarwala is accused of performing the mutilation while the Attars allegedly assisted. An agent who questioned the parents related that one of the parents had confirmed they'd brought their daughter to Nagarwala for what they called a "cleansing" of extra skin.

Adwoa Kwateng-Kluvitse who is Head of Global Advocacy and Partnerships at the London-based anti-FGM nonprofit FORWARD, said that activists often use "cutting" instead of "mutilation" because when they go into communities where it takes place, especially in certain African nations, the term actually translates to "cutting" in local languages. "We remind our members regularly of their obligations". It is not known if she has been returned to her parents yet, the newspaper reported. The Attars were arrested Friday morning as part of a federal raid at the clinic.

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