The Caged Virgin - Ayaan Hirsi Ali [61]
PROPOSAL FOR A SCREENING PROGRAM
For a screening program to prevent female circumcision, the government should take the following steps:
With the help of Amnesty International and the United Nations, draw up a list of high-risk countries.
Establish a program of compulsory medical examinations for children from these countries.
Make two lists: List A should contain the names of the girls who have already been subjected to mutilation, while List B should have the names of those who have not been harmed yet. Newborn girls are automatically added to List B.
Girls on List A are offered medical and psychological support.
Parents of girls on List B under eighteen are called up every year for a compulsory examination of their daughter.
Newly arrived immigrants from high-risk countries are automatically called.
The screening can be done by the local health service. If a girl on List B turns out to have been mutilated, this has to be reported to the Child Welfare Council, which will institute proceedings against the parents.
POSTSCRIPT
After much discussion about the pros and cons of screening tests, I secured a majority in the Dutch House of Representatives, thanks to the backing of the Labor Party, a social democrat party, which is in favor of periodic screening. Although the Labor representatives eventually gave unanimous support, this might not have happened without the support of Ella Kalsbeek, a member of parliament for the Labor Party, the party I left, who played a leading role. From the very outset of this debate the minister of health, Hans Hoogervorst, expressed his absolute horror of genital mutilation, considering it a form of child abuse, and showed himself in favor of introducing a screening program as soon as possible. In April 2004, he announced the establishment of a special committee with the Public Health Board to investigate the possibility of an effective screening program and to consider how the law can be used more effectively to identify incidents. Under Dutch law it could have become possible to prosecute not only Dutch citizens, but also foreigners with a fixed place of abode in the Netherlands who have assisted in or encouraged genital mutilation abroad in countries such as Somalia, where it is allowed, or countries where it is forbidden.
To my disappointment, the committee ultimately recommended that screening not be done. The minister of health said he would not want to make screening compulsory but will offer high-risk communities the opportunity to have their children examined. Before the family is approached with this opportunity, however, the government must establish that the family is likely to practice female genital mutilation. The government will look at whether the family is from a high-risk country, if the mother of the child is circumcised herself (which can only be known if she has given birth to the girl in Holland and her status is known by a Dutch medical doctor or health worker).
I have no majority for my screening proposal. I have only my party standing with me. The program that the government has devised instead of the one we advised is a very expensive, inefficient system. Tragically, many Muslim immigrant girls will fall through the cracks.
Thirteen
Ten Tips for Muslim Women
Who Want to Leave
Since the early 1990s, there has been a gradual but noticeable increase in the number of Muslim girls in women’s shelters and special refuge centers for abused women. The shelters have been there for decades. Some of these women have successfully completed their schooling and hope to continue their education at college but have been refused permission to leave home. Their parents have not prepared them for a life of independence, and the whole family is shocked when the daughter announces she has ambitions of her own, which they regard as an alarming aberration.
A married Muslim woman who wants to