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[AbaddonsFury]

This sickens me to my stomach.....

Police in Norway have arrested a Gambian-born man and charged him and his wife with subjecting five of their six daughters to genital mutilation, officials said.

The practice, also known as female circumcision, is outlawed in Norway and arouses horror among many people in the West but is a rite of passage for young women in many countries, predominantly in Africa.

The youngest of the five mutilated girls, all born in Norway, is five years old, police officials said.

The others are aged seven, 10, 13 and 14 and live in Gambia, national broadcaster NRK reported.

Police officer Hanne Kristin Rohde, head of the violent crime and vice section of the Oslo police, said on Norwegian commercial television TV 2 that the father — a naturalised Norwegian citizen along with his wife — was taken into custody on Friday.

"Norwegian police have charged this couple of Gambian background for breaking the Norwegian law on genital mutilation — five of their six daughters are circumcised," Rohde said.

The mother is pregnant with a seventh child and was deemed unfit to be held in jail.

Norwegian authorities have been cracking down on the practice since mid-2007, barring families from travelling abroad if they suspect they plan to have the procedure done outside the country.

The charges are based on the discovery by child protection authorities that the couple's second youngest daughter, age five, was circumcised, Rohde said. Their youngest, age three, has not been subjected to the procedure, NRK said.

The child protection authorities have taken custody of the two youngest girls, Rohde said, adding that the police would now seek to bring the other four back to Norway in cooperation with the parents and Gambian and other Norwegian authorities.

UN agencies say an estimated 100 to 140 million women and girls worldwide have undergone genital mutilation, whose proponents say it promotes chastity before marriage and fidelity afterwards by reducing female sexual desire. Around 3 million a year are believed to be subjected to it.

[Wooster]

Ever since I first heard about this practice it leaves me infuriated..

It's fucking barbaric! 

[Thermalsig]

Ever since I first heard about this practice it leaves me infuriated..

It's fucking barbaric! 

It is at that. I think any man who consents to it should have his balls cut off. If your wife or daughter has to lead a life with a mutilated body with no sexual pleasure, so should the man who allows it to happen. It's sickening.

[AbaddonsFury]

But it's their religious right.......

[Thermalsig]

But it's their religious right.......

to have their balls cut off!

[Vasco]

But it's their religious right.......

Obviously not in Norway it isn't!  Good on the Norwegians.

[AbaddonsFury]

Yes, but you get my drift by my comment on "But it's their religious right....."

All jokes aside, look behind my sarcasm, and what I am really saying....

[Vasco]

You know I agree that there are somethings that religions preach that are just WRONG.  Religious rights are no justification for cruelty and inhumanity. Just like individual civil rights shouldn't protect criminals at the expense of their victims rights, which is a whole other debate that is happening over here at the moment. 

A girl gang raped has had to appear before a parole board and now the High Court 4 times in the last two years to keep  one of the offenders in prison serving his sentence.  He has done only two and a half years of a seven year sentence and he wouldn't have even done that if she hadn't been so persistent.  There is no doubt that he is guilty either.

Thread hijack over. But the point I am making is that we are too generous sometimes with individual rights at the expense of common sense.

[Thermalsig]

You know I agree that there are somethings that religions preach that are just WRONG.  Religious rights are no justification for cruelty and inhumanity. Just like individual civil rights shouldn't protect criminals at the expense of their victims rights, which is a whole other debate that is happening over here at the moment. 

A girl gang raped has had to appear before a parole board and now the High Court 4 times in the last two years to keep  one of the offenders in prison serving his sentence.  He has done only two and a half years of a seven year sentence and he wouldn't have even done that if she hadn't been so persistent.  There is no doubt that he is guilty either.

Thread hijack over. But the point I am making is that we are too generous sometimes with individual rights at the expense of common sense.

+1

[Wooster]

But it's their religious right.......

Obviously not in Norway it isn't!  Good on the Norwegians.

Is there anywhere in the developed world where it isn't illegal?

[AbaddonsFury]

But it's their religious right.......

Obviously not in Norway it isn't!  Good on the Norwegians.

Is there anywhere in the developed world where it isn't illegal?

Problem is they go back home to the old country get it done there and return to their adopted country...