More than 500,000 women and girls across the United States are estimated to be living with the permanent physical and emotional damage of female genital mutilation (FGM), according to the most recent national analysis from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2016. That number alone should spark outrage.
Yet in Minnesota — a state that made FGM a felony more than three decades ago — not one single prosecution has been secured.
Minnesota is home to one of the largest Somali communities in the country. In Somalia, United Nations data estimate that roughly 98% of women ages 15 to 49 have undergone the procedure. While those numbers do not prove crimes are happening inside Minnesota, they underscore why many argue vigilance should be non-negotiable.
Instead, critics say the state’s record raises a troubling question: Is the law being enforced at all?
Republican State Rep. Mary Franson says the secrecy surrounding FGM makes enforcement extraordinarily difficult.
“It’s hidden — it’s a cultural practice, and who is doing the cutting could be a family member or a doctor who is also in that same culture,” Franson told Fox News Digital. She argues the crime often exists behind closed doors, shielded by tight-knit communities and a code of silence that outsiders are reluctant to penetrate. And that reluctance, critics warn, sounds eerily familiar.
Minnesota authorities have already faced intense scrutiny over massive welfare and daycare fraud scandals in which billions of taxpayer dollars were allegedly siphoned off while warning signs went unaddressed. Watchdogs later concluded officials hesitated to act aggressively in culturally sensitive situations — a hesitation that allowed abuse to fester in plain sight.
Is FGM another example of hands-off governance in the name of sensitivity?
Few voices carry more moral clarity than Ayaan Hirsi Ali — author, activist and survivor. “Female genital mutilation is violence against the most vulnerable — children,” Hirsi Ali told Fox News Digital. “It causes infection, incontinence, unbearable pain during childbirth and deep physical and emotional scars that never heal. Religious or cultural practices that deliberately and cruelly harm children must be confronted. No tradition can ever justify torture.”
She has made ending FGM central to her work through the AHA Foundation, arguing that social pressure inside certain communities can be overwhelming for parents. “Only legal accountability can help reduce that risk,” she said. “I survived female genital mutilation and I carry its scars with me. But I refuse to accept that another girl in America must endure what I did in Somalia.”
Her message is unmistakable: compassion without enforcement protects no one.
Another Minnesota-based survivor, Zahra Abdalla, described a childhood nightmare carried out in a refugee camp in Kenya when she was between six and seven years old.
“They tied my hands and my legs,” Abdalla said. “I remember being held down. I remember the pain — and knowing I could not escape.”
The procedure was performed without anesthesia using a razor blade. She said she fought back, kicking one of the women involved — an interruption that prevented the cutting from being completed. Later, she recalled, the wound was washed with salt water.
“That pain — I thought I was going to pass out,” she said.
Abdalla says the damage followed her into adulthood, requiring surgery and contributing, in her view, to miscarriages and severe pain during intimacy. She says marriage expectations often drive the practice.
“It’s tied to dowry. It’s tied to marriage,” she explained. “It’s tied to what men expect. Families believe it protects a girl’s value.” And above all, she says, silence keeps it alive. “You don’t talk about it. You’re told to stay quiet.”
Minnesota outlawed FGM in 1994. Federally, Congress criminalized the practice in 1996. After a Michigan prosecution collapsed on constitutional grounds, lawmakers strengthened federal authority. In 2021, President Donald Trump signed the Stop FGM Act, expanding jurisdiction in cases involving interstate or international travel.
And yet — prosecutions remain vanishingly rare nationwide.
A review of publicly available Minnesota court records reveals no documented criminal prosecutions under the state’s FGM statute. The Attorney General’s Office says county attorneys handle such cases. Counties contacted have identified none. The Minnesota Department of Health does not track specific FGM data. In short: there is a ban, but no visible enforcement.
International bodies such as the United Nations, the World Health Organization and UNICEF classify FGM as a human rights violation tied to controlling female sexuality and enforcing inequality. Somalia remains among the countries with the highest reported prevalence.
Medical experts warn the procedure can lead to chronic pain, hemorrhage, infections, childbirth complications, sexual dysfunction and even death. Because genital tissue is permanently altered, the harm cannot be undone.
And yet in Minnesota, there is no publicly available accounting of how many girls may be at risk — or whether any investigations are underway.
Some survivors believe certain families take girls overseas during school breaks for the procedure. Those claims are difficult to verify — but they mirror allegations made in the failed Michigan case.
The larger issue, critics argue, is not proof of one case or another — it is the absence of visible enforcement in the face of known risk.
This legislative session, Minnesota lawmakers introduced a proposal to create a task force aimed at preventing FGM. The bill’s chief author is Democratic Rep. Huldah Momanyi-Hiltsley, with bipartisan co-sponsors including Franson.
Franson says political resistance quickly followed.
“The bill was brought forward by women in the Somali community. I was the chief author, but then Democrats told one of the DFL women that if I carried the bill, they would not support it,” Franson said. “Of course, it’s because they believe I am a racist.”
Franson previously introduced legislation in 2017 that would have clarified parental accountability and classified FGM explicitly as child abuse. That effort stalled. Half a million estimated survivors nationwide. A documented survivor population in Minneapolis. A felony statute on the books for over 30 years. And not one prosecution in Minnesota.
The silence is deafening.
If laws exist but are never enforced, what message does that send? Cultural sensitivity cannot come at the expense of vulnerable girls. As survivors themselves insist, no tradition can justify permanent harm.
