Dec152016

Philadelphia Inquirer
December 15, 2016

Ancient ritual, modern suffering: Drexel program aids survivors of female genital cutting

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She is an undocumented immigrant from Burkina Faso, one of the poorest countries on earth.

She fled her West African homeland a year ago with her daughter, then 11 years old, to protect the girl from a cultural rite that goes beyond class, religion, and ethnic groups.

Much of the girl’s external genitals were to be cut off — the same ritual the mother had endured 34 years earlier.