Kids In Genital Mutilation Investigation Remain In Homes

In separate hearings Tuesday, Oakland County Juvenile Court referee Scott Hamilton ruled that the children of two couples under investigation by Michigan Child Protective Services for female genital mutilation can remain in their homes. However, he referred the child protection petitions to Circuit Judge Victoria Valentine for a decision on the termination of parental rights in the two cases, according to media reports.

State welfare officials launched the investigation into families who are members of a western India Shia Muslim sect, Dawoodi Bohra, which practices sexual mutilation as part of a religious ceremony, after federal indictments were handed down against three people accused of conspiring to perform the internationally condemned procedure. FGM, as it is called, has been illegal in the United States for two decades, but the case against Dr. Jumana Nagarwala, and Dr. Fakhruddin Attar and his wife, Farida Attar, is the first court test of the law.

They are accused of conspiring to perform the genital cuttings on two 7-year-old girls from Minnesota in February, but their attorneys maintain they are being persecuted for being Muslims. All three were ordered held without bond by a federal magistrate judge who found them to be flight risks.

In the hearing Tuesday, Hamilton agreed with attorneys representing the two couples, state welfare workers and a county prosecutor that removal would be traumatic for the children, who were described as happy and “thriving,” The Detroit News reported. Hamilton said the children, whose parents live in West Bloomfield and Farmington Hills, said the children do not appear to be “in any risk” if they remain in their homes.

See Also

• Detroit Doctor Accused Of Female Genital Mutilation Of Young Girls
• Genital Mutilation A Religious Ritual, Detroit Doctor’s Attorney Says
• Second Doctor, Wife Charged in Historic Genital Mutilation Case
• Henry Ford Hospital Fires Doctor In Genital Mutilation Case
• Parents In Genital Cutting Case Could Lose Rights

Karen Cook, an attorney appointed as guardian ad litem to represent the children and defend their legal rights, argued the children should be removed from their homes.

“I do believe the children are in ongoing danger,” Cook said, noting that the parents, who so far haven’t been criminally charged, could be removed care under state and federal law for aggravated circumstances of physical abuse of children.

Assistant county prosecutor Anthony Marek said he was sympathetic and that “the safety of the children is paramount,” but said that because Nagarwala and the Attars remain in jail and the Attars’ clinic is closed, “the risk here is mitigated and we are not asking for removal.”

Cook wasn’t convinced, saying of Fakhruddin Attar: “He is not the only one in Michigan that does this.”

Hamilton imposed several conditions in allowing the children to remain in their homes, including that the parents refrain from discussing the case with their children, who could be called as witnesses in court; that they provide appropriate medical care and provide investigators and Cook their medical records and access for interviews. Further, he said, the children cannot have any procedures the state of Michigan could view as female genital mutilation.

On Monday, Juvenile Court referee Karla Mallett allowed the daughter of the Attars to remain in her parental home in Farmington Hills under the care of relatives. However, the Attars could still lose custody of their daughter, an alleged victim of sexual mutilation. A full custody hearing is scheduled before Mallett on May 16.

More parental rights termination cases could be forthcoming. There are about 125 Dawoodi Bohra families in Metro Detroit who worship at a mosque in Farmington Hills. The Child Protective Services investigation has unsettled Dawoodi Bohra parents, who told the Detroit Free Press their daughters had been pulled from classes without parental permission, interrogated by child welfare workers and subjected to medical examinations to determine if their genitals had been cut.

Child welfare workers have visited the homes of at least three Dawoodi Bohra families, according to reports. While the federal case court case against Nagarwala and the Attars centers on the two out-of-state girls, federal prosecutors have said that multiple Michigan girls were victims of genital mutilation at the Attars’ Livonia clinic.

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