Doctor In Genital Mutilation Case Fired By Hospital

DETROIT, MI — The Henry Ford Health System has fired Dr. Jumana Nagarwala, the Detroit area doctor at the center of a first-of-its-kind criminal prosecution for female genital mutilation. Nagarwala is accused of performing the controversial procedure, condemned globally as a violation of girls’ and women’s human rights, on 7-year-olds and then trying to cover it up.

The health-care system didn’t offer an explanation for firing Nagarwala, a 44-year-old physician from Northville who was arrested on April 12. Two other people, Dr. Fakhruddin Attar, 53, and his wife, Farida Attar, 50, both of Livonia, also have been charged in the case. They operate the Livonia clinic where the procedures allegedly took place. All three are being held without bond.

In a statement after Nagarwala’s arrest, Henry Ford Health System condemned the practice of female genital mutilation, or FGM, as it is commonly known. “We are shocked by the allegations,” the hospital said. “The alleged criminal activity did not occur at any Henry Ford facility. We would never support or condone anything related to this practice.”

Fakhruddin Attar, a specialist in internal medicine, remains listed on the St. Joseph Mercy Health System website as a physican at St. Mary Mercy Hospital in Livonia.

Attorney Decries Religious Persecution

In a related development, Shannon Smith, Nagarwala’s attorney, said after Thursday’s arraignment that the government is persecuting Nagarwala because of her religious beliefs, The Detroit News reported. Nagarwala and her co-defendants are members of a small sect of Shia Muslims known as Dawoodi Bohra, where the procedure is part of a religious custom.

Through Smith, Nagarwala has denied any cutting was involved in the procedure; rather, she says she removed the mucous membrane from the clitoris, wiped a portion of it on gauze and then presented it to the parents for burial. However, doctors said examinations of two of the victims, both 7 years old and from Minnesota, said their genitalia showed evidence of cutting, according to the criminal complaint filed when Nagarwala was arrested.

Though the case involves the girls from Minnesota, multiple girls from Michigan have also undergone the procedure, federal investigators have said.

Nagarwala is charged conspiracy to obstruct a federal investigation, genital mutilation, transporting a minor child with the intent to engage in sexual conduct and lying to a federal agent. The most serious of the charges involving the transportation of a minor carry a maximum penalty of up to life in prison.

The Attars are also charged with performing genital mutilation and conspiracy to obstruct a federal investigation, and Fakhruddin Attar is charged with lying to a federal agent.

The genital mutilation charges were added Wednesday in a federal grand jury indictment alleging that Fakhruddin Attar allowed Nagarwala to use his clinic for the procedures in February and helped facilitate the trips for the parents of the Minnesota girls named in the original complaint. His wife is accused of conspiring by holding the girls’ hands while the procedures were taking place and instructing at least one member of her community to lie if questioned about the procedures.

Though still practiced in parts of Africa, Asia and the Middle East as a means to curb girls’ and women’s natural sexual urges and exercise dominance in patriarchal societies, FGM has been illegal in the United States for more than two decades. Federal prosecutors said the case against Nagarwala and the Attars is believed to first in the United States under a federal law that criminalizes FGM and makes it punishable by up to five years in prison.

Girls Removed From Homes

According to documents obtained by CNN, the father of one of the 7-year-olds from Minnesota told investigators

The father of one of the 7-year-olds from Minnesota told investigators “that if they knew what would come of it, this would never have happened.” He was aware of where his daughter was going, according to court documents, because her mother sent a text message to him.

After the initial charges, officials in Hennepin County, Minnesota, filed a petition for a protective order on behalf of one of the victims. According to the petition, the girl traveled to Michigan with her mother, friend and the friend’s parents. “The doctor made her cry,” the girl told investigators about her friend.

The girl said she felt “a little pinch” in the area “where we go pee,” and that it “hurted a lot” the next day. She told investigators she felt better in three days and did not need medication. Nagarwala reportedly told the girl “no bikes and no splits for three days.”

A medical investigation revealed the “labia minora was either surgically removed or the minora was sewn down."

The girl was removed from her home for 72 hours by Minnesota child protective workers, but was allowed to return to her parents on the condition that she receive medical and psychiatric care and that a social worker be allowed to visit their home, Hennepin County district attorney's office spokesman Chuck Laszewski told CNN.

The second child entered foster care after an emergency removal hearing on April 19 in Anoka County, Minnesota, “due to her parents’ decision to submit the child to an unnecessary medical procedure, CNN said. Detailed files in that case were ordered sealed, and it is unclear if she has been returned to her home.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that 513,000 women and girls in the United States were at risk for FGM in 2012, more than three times the number estimated using 1990 data, and four times higher than estimates before that. The increase, the CDC said, “was wholly a result of rapid growth” in the number of immigrants from FGM-practicing countries, and not from an increase in prevalance of FGM in those countries.

Anjuman-e-Najmi Detroit, an organization managing the affairs of the local Dawoodi Bohra community, said in a statement Friday that it condemns the practice and encourages its members to follow U.S. law:

“The Dawoodi Bohras do not support the violation of any U.S. law, local, state or federal. We offer our assistance to the investigating authorities. Any violation of U.S. law is counter to instructions to our community members. It does not reflect the everyday lives of the Dawoodi Bohras in America. It is an important rule of the Dawoodi Bohras that we respect the laws of the land, wherever we live. This is precisely what we have done for several generations in America. We remind our members regularly of their obligations. The last such reminder made by the Detroit congregation was in May 2016, and by the Minneapolis congregation in March 2016. It is unfortunate if anyone has not abided by the laws of the country. We are a long-established, well-integrated, successful community in the United States, comprising 12,000 people, many of whom have been settled here since the 1950s. We take our religion seriously but our culture is modern and forward-looking. We are proud that women from our community have high levels of educational attainment and enjoy successful, professional careers.”

Photos of Dr. Jumana Nagarwala, left, and Dr. Fakhruddin Attar via Henry Ford Health System and St. Joseph Mercy Health System, respectively.