Articles Reflection and Analysis: Female Genital Cutting

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Articles Reflection and Analysis: Female Genital Cutting (FGC)
Summary
This paper offers an analysis of two distinctive articles about Female circumcision in an African context. "Representing Africa in the Kasinga Asylum Case", by Charles Piot, tells of the infamous story of Fauziya Kasinga, a Tchamba Togolese woman, who fights to run away from the nightmare of forced marriage and going through the cut commonly known as Female Genital Cutting (FGC). On the other hand, McKinley Michelle, in her article "Cultural Culprits" also offers deep insight into the same topic as she depicts the severity of the subject matter using a number of cases in the African setting- Kenya in particular. The author focuses on initiatives by British imperialist women to fight the practice of FGC
The young Kasinga decided to seek refuge in a country far miles away from her native home since as a young girl growing up in Africa, she was a victim of customs and culture that made her bound to be married off at a young age (to an elderly man with three wives) and undergo the cut in the process. All the same, her father had strived to provide her with a desirable life by empowerment through education. However, upon his demise and the banishment of her mother, Kasinga, who was left as a dependant on her aunt, became openly vulnerable (Piot, 226). It is likely that her aunt saw an opportunity for personal gain by forcing Kasinga into a polygamous marriage with an elderly man. McKinley states "Kasinga was in an internal family struggle for control over her father’s property…" (p. 160).
Analysis
Seeking asylum in the United States proved to be difficult since FGC is not something that is practiced therein in addition to the fact that racial and ethnic segregation was still existent at stumpy levels. Even so, what followed was a landmark legal case finally decided in June 1996, When Kasinga was granted Asylum in the United States away from forced marriage and gender-based maltreatment. This case is different though, it does not fit the description of the ordinary instances of political asylum. One may argue that it draws from modernist imaginaries, as a social theory. The whole concept of Kasinga’s case strives to assume the existence of a cultural difference between her Muslim community in Togo and the post-modern United States.
Kasinga’s appeal case revolved around some concerns, which included the query of whether the "harm of mutilation" was carried out with malignant intent. INS attorney Martin suggested that not only was it difficult to define the nature of a person’s subjective beliefs, but also, it was probable that those responsible for the practice of genital cutting had benign motives of upholding culture and or tradition. The judges consequently raised the question as to why genital cutting was practiced in the first place, to which INS attorney Martin ...