PHR CAMPAIGNS

PHR Action Center

Restore Asylum for Women and Girls Subjected to Female Genital Cutting

Please contact your senators today and urge them to sign a joint letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey, asking him to review the recent decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) denying asylum to a woman subjected to female genital cutting (FGC).

The BIA’s decision marks a significant and alarming departure from previous advances made for women's rights and it has already begun having a devastating impact on women's asylum claims based on past FGC.

The decision reverses long-standing recognition of FGC as a continuing form of persecution – and a basis for asylum – because of its long-term, harmful impact on women’s physical and mental health. The BIA disregarded the scientific evidence of these ongoing health consequences and ruled that past FGC is not a “continuing harm” because it happens to a woman only once.

To date, over 100 PHR Asylum Network members and 45 members of the U.S. House of Representatives have signed letters urging the Attorney General to review the BIA decision. We need your help in securing a similar letter from members of the Senate.

Tell you senators to sign the bipartisan letter sponsored by Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), asking the Attorney General reconsider the BIA’s harmful decision.

Send this message to:

Your Senators

Subject:

Dear [ Decision Maker ],

(Edit Letter Below)

As a health professional, I am writing to express my outrage at the recent Board of Immigration Appeals (the "Board") decision in Matter of A-T-, holding that victims of female genital cutting (FGC) are generally not entitled to asylum.  I ask you to urge Attorney General Mukasey to exercise his authority to review this horrific decision by signing onto a letter being circulated by Senators Olympia Snowe and Carl Levin.

FGC is a traditional practice in many developing countries whereby women and girls are forcibly subjected to cutting and/or removal of their genitalia. In September 2007, the Board issued a decision in which it held that women who have been subjected to FGC are not eligible for asylum because they have already been cut and therefore have no fear of its repetition. In its decision, the Board failed to recognize the many harmful health consequences of FGC for women and girls subjected to it, including permanent disfigurement, serious and even life-threatening complications to mother and infant during childbirth, infertility, chronic infections, cysts, abscesses, and a range of mental health disorders, including post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts and actions.

The Board's decision marks a disturbing retreat in progress for women's rights and an unsupportable rejection of medical and psychological evidence. The United States must not turn its back on refugee women who seek protection and recognition of their right to autonomy and bodily integrity.  I urge you to sign onto the letter in the Senate requesting that the Attorney General review the Board's decision in Matter of A-T-.

To sign on, please contact Kevin Glandon in Senator Levin's office at: Kevin_glandon@levin.senate.gov or (202) 224-9103, or Dylan Williams in Senator Snowe's office at: Dylan_williams@snowe.senate.gov or (202) 224-5097.

Thank you for your support and commitment to protecting women's rights.

Sincerely,
[Your name]
[Your address]

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