You turn to us for voices you won't hear anywhere else.

Sign up for Democracy Now!'s Daily Digest to get our latest headlines and stories delivered to your inbox every day.

New Book Examines the Asylum Process for Women Fleeing Genital Mutilation Practices

Listen
Media Options
Listen

Related

    In 1996, the political asylum case of Fauziya Kassindja made worldwide headlines. As a 17-year-old, she fled her homeland of Togo, Africa, to escape the ritual practice of female genital mutilation. After arriving in the U.S. she was imprisoned by the U.S. Immigration Service for 16 months.

    She eventually became the first person granted political refugee status in the United States because of the practice of female circumcision in her homeland.

    Now Fauziya and her lawyer Layli Miller Bashir tell their story in a new book published this month called ??Do They Hear You When You Cry?

    Guests:

    • Fauziya Kassindja, the first person granted political refugee status in the United States because of the practice of female circumcision in her homeland.
    • Layli Miller Bashir, Kassindja’s attorney and the co-author of ??Do They Hear You When You Cry? She took on Fauziya Kassindja’s case as a 23-year-old law student.

    Related links:

    ??
    ??
    .??
    ??
    .??
    ??
    .??
    ??

    Related Story

    StoryMar 14, 2024Mehdi Hasan on Genocide in Gaza, the Silencing of Palestinian Voices in U.S. Media & Why He Left MSNBC
    The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

    Non-commercial news needs your support

    We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
    Please do your part today.
    Make a donation
    Top