Michigan doctor says female genital surgery was a 'religious practice' -- not mutilation [View all]

[DonViejo]

Tresa Baldas
Detroit Free Press

DETROIT — In a stunning revelation in federal court Monday, an attorney for a Detroit-area doctor charged with mutilating the genitals of young girls admitted that her client performed a procedure on the juveniles' private parts, but maintained that it wasn't cutting.

Instead, the lawyer said Dr. Jumana Nagarwala, 44, of Northville, removed the membrane from the girls' genitals as part of a religious practice that is tied to an international Indian Muslim group that the doctor belongs to.

Attorney Shannon Smith said that her client removed the membrane from the girls' vaginal parts and gave it to the girls' parents, who would then bury it following a custom practiced by a small sect of Indian Muslims known as the Dawoodi Bohra.

All of this was disclosed at a detention hearing for Nagarwala, who was ordered locked up pending the outcome of her case. The judge concluded she was a danger to the community and a flight risk after hearing arguments from both sides.

The government argued that Nagarwala engaged in secretive practice that has potentially harmed numerous young girls across Michigan. And she did it after hours, in a private, unnamed clinic in Livonia, without keeping any records or billing anyone, the government said.

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/04/michigan-doctor-says-female-genital-surgery-was-a-religious-practice-not-mutilation/