超过50万美国女性和女孩正遭受女性生殖器切割（FGM）带来的身体和心理创伤——其中包括明尼苏达州的许多人。明尼苏达州拥有大量索马里社区，而根据联合国数据，在索马里，约98%的女性接受过这种手术。
尽管该州法律将实施此类手术定为重罪，但明尼苏达州从未依据该法律进行过一次刑事起诉——这引发了人们对执法力度的质疑，以及案件是否可能在未被察觉的情况下持续发生。
女性生殖器切割（FGM）涉及切割或切除女性生殖器官的部分组织，通常出于文化而非医疗原因。这种做法是不可逆的。
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“它是隐秘的——这是一种文化习俗，实施切割的人可能是家庭成员或同文化背景的医生，”明尼苏达州共和党州议员玛丽·弗兰森（Mary Franson）告诉福克斯新闻数字版，她指出这种行为可能在关系紧密的社区内进行。她表示，围绕这种做法的保密性使得发现和处理它异常困难。
[MINNESOTA ‘ON THE CLOCK’ AS HHS THREATENS PENALTIES OVER CHILDCARE FRAUD SCANDAL]
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对明尼苏达州索马里社区的一些人来说，这个问题与其说是公开的犯罪统计数据，不如说是私下的沉默——幸存者表示，这种做法在秘密、羞耻和恐惧中代代相传。
在缺乏起诉的同时，明尼苏达州机构如何处理监督失败的问题也受到了更广泛的审视，其中包括备受瞩目的福利和日托欺诈案件，检察官称在这些案件中，数十亿美元的纳税人资金被挪用，而预警信号却未被重视。调查人员和监督机构后来得出结论，官员们在文化敏感的情况下不愿深入调查——批评者表示，这种不愿导致大规模违规行为在众目睽睽之下持续存在。
美国疾病控制与预防中心（CDC）2016年发布的最新全国分析报告显示，美国有超过50万FGM幸存者。
这种问题的规模和发现的难度共同引发了疑问：当犯罪行为往往在秘密中进行时，明尼苏达州对FGM的禁令是否得到了有效执行？
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幸存者警告长期伤害
索马里出生的活动家兼作家阿亚安·希尔西·阿里（Ayaan Hirsi Ali）曾是FGM的幸存者，她描述了自己所遭受的长期身体和心理伤害，并呼吁法律问责。
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“女性生殖器切割是对最脆弱群体——儿童的暴力行为，”希尔西·阿里告诉福克斯新闻数字版，“它会导致感染、失禁、分娩时难以忍受的疼痛，以及永远无法愈合的身心深刻伤痕。故意残忍伤害儿童的宗教或文化习俗必须受到抵制。任何传统都不能成为虐待的借口。”
希尔西·阿里创立了AHA基金会以终结FGM，她表示，这些群体中父母承受的执行压力给女孩带来了巨大风险。
“只有法律问责才能帮助降低这种风险，”希尔西·阿里说，“我幸存了下来，但我身上带着它的伤疤。但我拒绝接受另一个美国女孩必须经历我在索马里所经历的一切。”
“我记得被按住的感觉”
明尼苏达州索马里裔FGM幸存者扎赫拉·阿卜杜拉（Zahra Abdalla）告诉福克斯新闻数字版，这种做法在秘密中延续，受家庭压力和沉默的保护。
阿卜杜拉在镜头前接受采访，但要求对其面部进行模糊处理。她表示，在肯尼亚的难民营中，当她6至7岁时，社区中的成年女性在没有麻醉的情况下用剃须刀实施了切割，她被强行束缚。
“她们绑住我的手脚，”阿卜杜拉说，“我记得被按住。我记得那种疼痛——并且知道我无法逃脱。”
阿卜杜拉称自己“很幸运”，因为她在手术过程中进行了反抗，踢了当时怀孕的一名女性。她表示，这种干扰导致切割在完全完成前停止。伤口后来用盐水清洗。
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“那种疼痛——我以为自己会昏过去，”她说。
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她表示，这种伤害伴随她进入成年期，后来需要手术，并且她认为这导致了多次流产。她还说，性交非常困难。
她表示，这种做法通常由婚姻期望驱动，补充说在一些社区中，男性不愿娶未接受过手术的女性。
“这与嫁妆有关，与婚姻有关，”她提到安排婚姻时家庭面临的经济和社会期望，“这与男性的期望有关，”她说，“家庭认为这能保护女孩的‘价值’。”
她表示，沉默仍然是执行的最大障碍之一。她是非营利组织索马里救济署（SRA）的执行董事，该组织致力于提高对这种做法的认识。
“你不能谈论它，”她说，“你被告知要保持沉默。”
虽然她无法确认明尼苏达州内是否有具体案件，但她认为一些家庭会在学校假期期间带女孩回索马里接受手术。
尽管法律定为重罪却无起诉
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她的警告反映了美国仅有的一些已知案件的发生方式。
2017年密歇根州的一个高调联邦案件中，检察官指控两名年轻女孩被从明尼苏达州带往接受女性生殖器切割。但该案件后来因法官裁定国会当时未明确拥有涉及州际或国际旅行的案件的宪法管辖权而失败。
该裁决促使国会加强了相关法律条款，2021年唐纳德·特朗普总统签署了《阻止FGM法案》，扩大了联邦对涉及州际或国际旅行案件的管辖权。
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然而，福克斯新闻数字版对明尼苏达州公开法院记录、执法公告和专业执照纪律记录的审查发现，没有任何与FGM相关的起诉或制裁记录。明尼苏达州总检察长办公室表示，州级犯罪如FGM的起诉由县检察官处理，并未指出任何FGM案件。接受采访的县检察官也未确认任何起诉案例。
然而，这些规定并未导致有记录的刑事起诉。
明尼苏达州于1994年将女性生殖器切割定为重罪。
明尼苏达州卫生部告诉福克斯新闻数字版，他们不跟踪FGM的具体数据，这凸显了监测或执行这种做法的难度。
全球背景与地方不确定性
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在全球范围内，FGM在非洲和中东部分地区最为普遍。
[索马里是全球FGM发生率最高的国家之一]，联合国数据显示，该国约98%的15至49岁女性接受过该手术。联合国、世界卫生组织和联合国儿童基金会将FGM归类为侵犯人权行为，其根源在于控制女性性行为和强化性别不平等的企图。联合国每年2月都会举行“消除FGM全球宣传日”活动。
这些数据描述了索马里的情况，并不证明该手术在明尼苏达州发生，但有助于解释为什么即使这种做法难以察觉，风险仍然被承认。
[医学专家]表示，该手术可导致慢性疼痛、严重出血、感染、泌尿系统问题、性功能障碍、分娩并发症，在某些情况下还会导致死亡。由于它永久性地改变了生殖组织，这种伤害无法逆转。幸存者往往需要反复医疗护理，并承受长期心理创伤。
批评者表示，法律与执行之间的差距是由沉默造成的。
幸存者往往因恐惧、污名化、家庭压力或担心引起当局注意而不报告——即使存在强制报告法律。医疗专业人员，特别是妇产科医生，往往是第一个接触成年幸存者的人，这使得临床医生处于尚未实现的任何执法工作的中心位置。
[MINNESOTA FRAUD WHISTLEBLOWER SAYS ‘LACK OF GUARDRAILS WAS PRETTY SHOCKING’]
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CDC尚未发布更新的全国估计数据，也没有明尼苏达州受害者人数的数据。然而，CDC支持的2019-2021年妇女健康需求研究将[明尼阿波利斯]列为四个记录了大量幸存者的美国都市区之一。
该研究未追踪手术发生地点或是否有人被起诉，这凸显了公众对执法情况知之甚少。
福克斯新闻数字版还联系了多家明尼苏达州提供生殖和妇女健康服务的诊所，询问临床医生是否遇到有FGM身体证据的患者，但没有收到任何回应。
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立法者在问责问题中推动成立特别工作组
一些明尼苏达州立法者在本届会议期间提出了[法案]，旨在建立“防止女性生殖器切割特别工作组”——弗兰森议员表示，这反映了社区女性对该做法可能在明尼苏达州发生或未被发现的担忧。
弗兰森表示，该法案是由索马里社区女性提出的担忧促成的。该法案的主要提案人是肯尼亚裔民主党议员胡尔达·莫马尼-希尔斯利（Huldah Momanyi-Hiltsley），弗兰森以及民主党议员克里斯汀·巴纳（Kristin Bahner）、克里斯蒂·珀塞尔（Kristi Pursell）和索马里裔美国人安奎姆·马哈茂德（Anquam Mahamoud）共同赞助了该法案。截至发稿，这些人未回应福克斯新闻数字版的多次置评请求。
弗兰森表示，一旦公开支持该法案，她就成为反对者的焦点。
“该法案由索马里社区的女性提出，我是主要提案人，但后来民主党告诉一位DFL（明尼苏达州民主党-农民-劳工党）女性，如果我牵头该法案，他们将不支持，”弗兰森说，“当然，这是因为他们认为我是种族主义者。”
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弗兰森是白人，她在2017年首次提出与FGM相关的立法，将其列为虐待儿童行为，并明确父母责任。该努力未能通过，从未成为法律。
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在联邦层面，国会于1996年将女性生殖器切割定为犯罪，并在2018年通过特朗普总统签署的立法扩大了联邦管辖权，明确涵盖涉及州际或国际旅行的案件。
即便如此，全国范围内的起诉仍然罕见，唯一被广泛引用的州级定罪发生在2006年的佐治亚州，一名女性因对未成年人实施FGM被定罪。
在明尼苏达州，自1994年以来FGM一直是重罪，但没有任何公开记录显示有一次刑事起诉——这引发了一个不可避免的问题：既然法律存在且有记录在案的幸存者，谁有责任执行禁令？为什么没有随之而来的起诉？
More than half a million women and girls in the United States are living with the physical and psychological scars of female genital mutilation — including many in Minnesota, home to a large Somali community from a country where roughly 98% of women have undergone the procedure, according to United Nations data.
Yet despite a state law that makes performing the procedures a felony, Minnesota has never secured a single criminal prosecution under its law — raising questions about enforcement, and whether cases could be going on undetected.
Female genital mutilation, or FGM, involves the cutting or removal of parts of a female’s genital organs, typically for cultural rather than medical reasons. The practice is irreversible.
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“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,” Minnesota Republican state Rep. Mary Franson told Fox News Digital, noting it may be carried out within tight-knit communities. She said the secrecy surrounding the practice makes it exceptionally difficult to detect and confront.
[MINNESOTA ‘ON THE CLOCK’ AS HHS THREATENS PENALTIES OVER CHILDCARE FRAUD SCANDAL]
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For some within Minnesota’s Somali community, the issue is less about public crime statistics and more about private silence — a practice survivors say is carried in secrecy, shame and fear.
The lack of prosecutions comes amid broader scrutiny of how Minnesota agencies handle oversight failures, including high-profile welfare and daycare fraud cases in which prosecutors allege billions of taxpayer dollars were siphoned off while warning signs went unaddressed. Investigators and watchdogs later concluded that officials were reluctant to probe deeply in culturally sensitive contexts — a reluctance, critics say, allowed large-scale violations to persist in plain sight.
The estimate of more than half a million survivors in the United States comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s most recent national analysis, published in 2016.
Together, the scale of the issue and the difficulty of detection have raised questions about whether Minnesota’s ban on FGM is being effectively enforced when the crime is often carried out in secrecy.
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Survivor warns of lasting harm
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born activist and author who survived FGM, described the lasting physical and psychological damage she endured and called for legal accountability.
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“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.”
Hirsi Ali, who founded the AHA Foundation as a means to end FGM, said that the pressure placed on parents in these groups to enforce the practice poses an overwhelming risk to girls.
“Only legal accountability can help reduce that risk,” Hirsi Ali 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.”
‘I remember being held down’
Zahra Abdalla, a Minnesota-based Somali survivor of female genital mutilation, told Fox News Digital that the practice survives in secrecy, shielded by family pressure and silence.
Abdalla, who spoke to Fox News Digital on camera but asked that her face be blurred, said she was between six and seven years old when she was forcibly restrained in a refugee camp in Kenya while adult women in her community carried out the procedure without anesthesia, using a razor blade.
“They tied my hands and my legs,” Abdalla said. “I remember being held down. I remember the pain — and knowing I could not escape.”
Abdalla said she was “lucky” because she fought back during the procedure, kicking one of the women who was pregnant at the time. The disruption, she said, caused the cutting to stop before it was fully completed. She said the wound was later washed with salt water.
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“That pain — I thought I was going to pass out,” she said.
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The damage followed her into adulthood, she said, later requiring surgery and, in her view, contributing to multiple miscarriages. She also said intercourse was very difficult.
She said the practice is often driven by marriage expectations, adding that in some communities men are reluctant to marry women who have not undergone the procedure.
“It’s tied to dowry. It’s tied to marriage,” she said, referring to the financial and social expectations placed on families when arranging marriages. “It’s tied to what men expect,” she said. “Families believe it protects a girl’s value.”
She said silence remains one of the biggest barriers to enforcement. She is the executive director of the nonprofit Somaliweyn Relief Agency (SRA), which seeks to raise awareness about the practice.
“You don’t talk about it,” she said. “You’re told to stay quiet.”
While she said she cannot confirm specific cases inside Minnesota, she said she believes some families take girls back to Somalia during school breaks to have the procedure performed.
No prosecutions despite felony law
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Her warning mirrors how some of the only known U.S. cases have surfaced.
In a high-profile federal case in Michigan in 2017, prosecutors alleged that two young girls were taken from Minnesota to undergo female genital mutilation. The case later collapsed because the judge ruled that Congress did not clearly have the constitutional authority, at the time, which expanded federal jurisdiction in cases involving interstate or international travel.
That ruling prompted Congress to strengthen the statute, a change signed into law by President Donald Trump in 2021 under the Stop FGM Act, which expanded federal jurisdiction in cases involving interstate or international travel.
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However, a Fox News Digital review of publicly available Minnesota court records, enforcement announcements and professional licensing disciplinary records found no documented prosecutions or sanctions tied to FGM. The Minnesota Attorney General’s Office said prosecutions for state crimes like female genital mutilation are handled by county attorneys and did not identify any FGM cases. County prosecutors contacted for this story also did not identify any prosecutions.
Those provisions, however, have not resulted in documented criminal prosecutions.
Minnesota criminalized female genital mutilation in 1994, classifying the practice as a felony.
The Minnesota Department of Health told Fox News Digital that it does not track specific data on female genital mutilation, underscoring how difficult the practice is to monitor or enforce.
Global context, local uncertainty
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Around the world, FGM is most prevalent in parts of Africa and the Middle East.
[Somalia has among the highest prevalence] rates in the world, with United Nations data estimating roughly 98% of women ages 15 to 49 there have undergone the procedure. The United Nations, World Health Organization and UNICEF classify FGM as a human rights violation rooted in efforts to control female sexuality and enforce gender inequality, and the UN observes an annual day of awareness in February to combat the practice globally.
Those figures describe conditions in Somalia and are not proof the procedure is occurring in Minnesota, but they help explain why risk is acknowledged even as the practice remains difficult to detect.
[Medical experts] say the procedure can cause chronic pain, severe bleeding, infections, urinary problems, sexual dysfunction, childbirth complications and, in some cases, death. Because it permanently alters genital tissue, the harm cannot be undone. Survivors often require repeated medical care and carry lasting psychological trauma.
Critics say the gap between the law and enforcement is fueled by silence.
Survivors often do not report the practice out of fear, stigma, family pressure or concern about involving authorities — even when mandatory reporting laws exist. Medical professionals, particularly OB-GYNs, are often the first to encounter adult survivors, placing clinicians near the center of any enforcement effort that has yet to materialize.
[MINNESOTA FRAUD WHISTLEBLOWER SAYS ‘LACK OF GUARDRAILS WAS PRETTY SHOCKING’]
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The CDC has not released a newer national estimate, and there is no data on the number of people in Minnesota who are victims. However, a CDC-supported Women’s Health Needs Study conducted from 2019 to 2021 included [Minneapolis as one] of four U.S. metro areas documenting a significant survivor population.
The study did not track where procedures occurred or whether anyone was charged, underscoring how little the public knows about enforcement.
Fox News Digital also contacted multiple Minnesota clinics that provide reproductive and women’s health services asking whether clinicians encounter patients with physical evidence of female genital mutilation. None responded.
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Lawmakers push task force amid accountability questions
Some Minnesota state lawmakers have introduced [legislation this session] to establish a “task force on prevention of female genital mutilation” — a step that Rep. Mary Franson said reflects concerns raised by women in the community that the practice may be occurring or going undetected in Minnesota.
Franson said the legislation was prompted by concerns raised by women in the Somali community. The bill’s chief author is Rep. Huldah Momanyi-Hiltsley, a Democrat of Kenyan heritage, and it is co-sponsored by Franson along with Democratic Reps. Kristin Bahner, Kristi Pursell and Anquam Mahamoud, who is Somali-American. None of them responded to multiple Fox News Digital requests for comment.
Franson said she became a focal point of opposition once she became publicly associated with the bill.
“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.”
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Franson, who is white, first introduced FGM-related legislation in 2017 that would have classified the practice as child abuse and clarified parental accountability. That effort stalled and never became law.
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At the federal level, Congress criminalized female genital mutilation in 1996 and later expanded federal jurisdiction in 2018 under legislation signed by then-President [Donald Trump,] explicitly covering cases involving interstate or international travel.
Even so, prosecutions nationwide have remained rare, with the only widely cited state-level conviction occurring in Georgia in 2006, where a woman was convicted under Georgia state law for performing FGM on a minor.
In Minnesota, where the practice has been a felony since 1994, there is no public record of a single criminal prosecution — raising an unavoidable question: with laws on the books and a documented survivor population, who is responsible for enforcing the ban, and why have prosecutions not followed?