Michigan Mom charged with having daughter’s genitals cut

A Michigan mother charged with forcing her daughter to genital cutting wants her ankle monitor removed claiming that it irritates her skin, according to court documents filed in the case by her attorney on Tuesday. 

The Oakland County mother, who has not been publicly named to protect the identity of her minor daughter, has requested for a judge to approve that the device to be removed from her ankle, the Detroit Free Press reported. 

In the documents filed by her attorney, Brian Legghio, the woman argues that the ankle monitor ‘serves no practical purpose and there is no reason to continue wearing it for the next eight months.’ 

She added that the device ‘can never be removed — even while showering, bathing and sleeping,’ that it is ‘physically uncomfortable and causes irritation to the skin,’ and that it is ‘unnecessarily intrusive’. 

Her attorney wrote: ‘It’s visual presence and it’s intermittent beeping requires (her) to explain to her 8-year-old and 5-year-old children why their mother must wear an electronic bracelet on her ankle.’

He stressed that his client had ‘no prior criminal record whatsoever’ and that she does not pose a threat to the community.  

The Oakland County mother, who has not been publicly named to protect the identity of her minor daughter, is one of eight defendents in the case. They are all accused of participating in subjecting young girls to cut their genitals as part of a religious practice. Above a traditional razor blade used to perform female genital mutilation in parts of Africa is pictured

He described the woman as a stay-at-home mother who cares for her family daily while taking her children to school events and attending prayer at her local mosque. 

Prosecutors have not commented about her request.  

The mother’s case also involves eight defendants, including two doctors, a physician’s wife and four other mothers. They are all accused of participating in subjecting young girls to cut their genitals as part of a religious practice within their Indian Muslim sect – the Dawoodi Bohra.

According to members of the religious group, the common age for the procedure to be performed on girls is seven. 

Detroit-based doctors Jumana Nagarwala (left) and Fakhruddin Attar (right), as well as Attar’s wife Farida, have been charged with the female genital mutilation of at least two girls, 7, back in February. The trial for the case will begin in June

FBI agents searched the Burhani Clinic in Livonia, Michigan back in April in connection to the case of Dr. Jumana Nagarwala, of Northville, charged with performing genital mutilation on two young girls from Minnesota

Authorities and prosecutors believe that an estimated 100 girls had been subjected to the shocking procedure at a Livonia clinic over the last 12 years. 

This is the first genital mutilation case in America after it came to light back in April when Dr. Jumana Nagarwala was indicted. 

Nagarwala had worked as an emergency room physician at Henry Ford before she was terminated. 

She allegedly performed the procedure on two Michigan girls and two Minnesota girls at the Livonia clinic where the owner, Dr. Fakuruddin Attar and his wife, Farida Attar, have also been charged in the case. 

All of the defendants are members of the Dawoodi Bohra. The trial will begin in June for the case.

Genital mutilation has been condemned worldwide and is illegal in the United States. 

The procedure has roots in various cultures in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. It’s generally performed as a way of controlling a girl’s sexuality, maintaining her purity or even making her more fertile as she grows into adulthood.

But it’s difficult to gauge how often genital cutting occurs in the U.S. – a 2012 study from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention estimated that more than 513,000 girls in the country had been subjected to or were at risk of undergoing genital cutting.