A federal judge ruled a Tennessee law requiring women to wait at least 24 or 48 hours prior to abortion unconstitutional last week. The ruling impacts any aspect of the law that references mandatory waiting periods.
Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery III was named the defendant in the case.
Read More
A bill that strengthens Tennessee’s protections against female genital mutilation (FGM) is headed to Gov. Bill Lee for his signature after the Legislature approved the measure. The national EndFGMToday campaign issued a press release congratulating Tennessee lawmakers. The advocacy organization said the bill will provide additional protections for women…
Read More
Wednesday marks the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation. Coinciding with the day, the United Nations is calling for action to eliminate the procedure by 2030. The U.N. estimates at least 200 million girls and women alive today have been subjected to female genital mutilation, a procedure…
Read More
North Carolina state Senator Joyce Krawiec (R-D31) alongside Lt. Governor Dan Forest and state Senator Sawyer (R-D34) held a press conference Wednesday introducing a bill to prevent Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in North Carolina. FGM is a barbaric procedure to remove the clitoris entirely or in part, and is usually performed…
Read More
by Gabrielle Okun A 10-year-old girl in Somalia died on July 14 after complications from female genital mutilation. Deeqa Dahir Nuur, the young girl from the village of Olol, bled to death after a traditional cutter in her town severed a vein causing hemorrhaging, according to The Guardian Friday. She was then…
Read More
The 2013 Population Reference Bureau (PRB) estimate that over 500,000 women and girls in the U.S. are at risk for female genital mutilation (FGM) has been confirmed by an updated analysis issued by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Eight “battleground states” where voters will determine control of the U.S. Senate and…
Read More
A detailed story about pregnant African refugees in Minnesota who were genitally mutilated before arriving in the U.S. has raised possible legal implications for obstetricians and mid-wives who first “deinfibulate” or cut open the seal created by the genital mutilation, but then resew the opening closed, or “reinfibulate” the woman…
Read More
State Senator Bill Ketron is questioning why no cases of female genital mutilation (FGM) have been reported since 2012, after his bill requiring healthcare providers to report suspected incidents of FGM to law enforcement officials, including the district attorney general’s office, became state law. Ketron sponsored the 2012 bill after the Hospital…
Read More
FRANKLIN, TENNESSEE (Wednesday, June 21) — In another stunning announcement, The Tennessee Star released updated web traffic reports in a tweet Wednesday that shows the online news, information, and opinion website surpassed 500,000 visits in the last thirty days. WOW! Thank you, Tennessee!!30days (5/20-6/20): 526,841 visits 290,288 visitorsAll time (2/06-6/20): 1,536,671…
Read More
Despite being a Class D felony in Tennessee since 1996, and despite twenty-one cases of female genital mutilation (FGM) in the state being reported in 2011, there is no publicly available record of any prosecutions for this crime in Tennessee. This contrasts sharply with Michigan that has no state…
Read More
A 2016 Center for Disease Control (CDC) report estimates that “513,000 women and girls in the United States were at risk of or may have been subjected” to being mutilated, triple the number estimated in 1990. Â Immigration from high prevalence FGM countries is considered the reason for the spike,…
Read More
Dr. Jim Henderson, medical director for Siloam Health Care Services, Inc., uses the terms “female circumcision” and female genital mutilation (FGM) interchangeably, responding to questions from The Tennessee Star about the state’s female FGM reporting law. Except, “female circumcision” has been rejected as an accurate description of the barbaric FGM practice…
Read More
Knox County Mayor Tim Burchett tells The Tennessee Star that female genital mutilation (FGM), which is illegal in Tennessee, is “something out of the dark ages” that must be reported when the barbaric practice is discovered in the Volunteer State. “I would expect somebody to have some guts and enforce the law.…
Read More
GOP Gubernatorial candidate Randy Boyd and Nashville Mayor Megan Barry have something in common. They both want refugees resettled in Tennessee, and they both remain silent on the threat of female genital mutilation (FGM) to women and girls in the Volunteer State. Reiterating her campaign theme, “it doesn’t matter…
Read More
Working in partnership with Catholic Charities’ TN Office for Refugees, Siloam Health Care Services, Inc., headquartered in Nashville, serves as the Statewide Refugee Screening Coordinator for Tennessee and provides the initial domestic medical screening for refugees resettling in Middle Tennessee. Siloam also contracts with Christ Community Health Center in Memphis,…
Read More
Siloam Health, staffed with full-time medical providers, is located in Nashville and operates as a “faith-based, volunteer-supported clinic for people with no health insurance and limited resources.” In 2012, Siloam estimated that eighty-six percent of its patients were foreign born. The health center contracts with Catholic Charities’ TN Office for…
Read More
According to Dr. Meiwita Budiharsana, a lecturer and Faculty of Public Health at the University of Indonesia: Around 60 million women, or half of the women in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim majority, is estimated to have undergone FGM. According to data collated by UNICEF, between 2010 – 2015, forty-nine…
Read More
As Adama tells me her story, the motivation for her fight, she pounds on her chest proudly. She has an enormous smile and a stylish shock of short hair. Adama is 23, originally from The Gambia. When she was a little kid there, her mother told her: “You’re going to…
Read More
Metro Nashville school nurses have not received formal training on how to spot potential cases of female genital mutilation despite state lawmakers drawing attention to FGM with legislation in 2012. The 2012 law requires health care providers to report injuries related to FGM, a brutal practice in parts of Africa, the…
Read More
The FBI has identified a Female Genital Mutilation ring, where young daughters of resettled Somalis living in Minnesota take what’s called a ‘Girls Trip’ to Michigan to undergo the horrific procedure. TownHall.com’s Katie Pavlich reports: Doctor Fakhruddin Attar and wife Farida were arrested Friday near Detroit for conspiring to commit and aiding in…
Read More
The Tennessee Department of Health’s (TDH) Mission Statement is to: [p]rotect, promote and improve the health and prosperity of people in Tennessee….Protecting people’s health by preventing problems that contribute to illness, disease and injury is the overall emphasis of the department. As a matter of public health, however, it appears that the TDH…
Read More
Twenty-five “integration practitioners” from Germany will visit several U.S. cities in May, including Nashville, as part of the Welcoming Communities Transatlantic Exchange program to learn how immigrants  and refugees are welcomed and integrated (as opposed to assimilated) in these locations. As part of the exchange program, representatives from the U.S.…
Read More
Both the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Population Reference Bureau (PRB) agree that over 500,000 women and girls in the U.S. are either at risk for female genital mutilation (FGM) or have already been mutilated. The CDC estimates that the risk has tripled since 1990, and the PRB…
Read More
Media Research Center President Brent Bozell and ACT for America Chair Brigitte Gabriel are criticizing the major networks for overlooking the first federal legal case of female genital mutilation (FGM) in the U.S. Bozell and Gabriel publicized their criticisms in a report at NewsBusters, an online site run by the…
Read More
The Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro-Franklin Metropolitan Statistical Area is ranked 20th in the country for the potential risk of female genital mutilation (FGM) being performed on women and girls, as reported by the Population Reference Bureau. Among state rankings Tennessee is number 18  overall for risk to women and girls from FGM. Yet under…
Read More
Tennessee outlawed female genital mutilation (FGM) in 1996, but 2013 data collated in a Population Reference Bureau (PRB) report, shows that the Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro-Franklin Metropolitan Statistical Area is ranked 20th in the country for the potential risk of FGM being performed on women and girls. Tennessee is number 18 in overall state rankings…
Read More