Cultural Culprits
Cultural Culprits Michelle A. McKinley t In 2007, Olivia Nabulwala, a Ugandan national, sought political asylum in Minnesota on the grounds of sexual orientation and social group membership. I Nabulwala alleged that her parents and extended family were outraged by her lesbian sexual orientation and arranged for her to be raped en famille to convert her into a heterosexual woman. 2 In 2006, Khalid Adem, a 30-year-old Ethiopian immigrant, was convicted of genitally mutilating his two-year-old daughter, Amirah.3 Although Adem was convicted under Georgia's child battery statute, the practice of female genital cutting has been criminalized by federal statute in the United States since 1996.4 Consonant with the U.S.'s condemnatory stance toward the practice of female genital cutting in African 5 and Asian countries, Assistant Professor, University of Oregon School of Law, Resident Scholar, Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics (2008-2009); B.A. Wellesley College, M.Phil. Oxford University, J.D. Harvard Law School. Research and writing of this article was supported by the Wayne Morse Center and the University of Oregon Law School Dean's Fund. My appreciation goes to Maruja Rodriguez, Elizabeth Sanner, and Vicki Santillhn for their superb administration of my own maternal imperial realm, and my deepest thanks go to my children Max, Isadora, and Gideon for their infinite patience and understanding on weekends and family time as I wrote this article. I have been fortunate to share my thoughts and ideas with many generous colleagues: Laurie Berg, Annie Bunting, Amy Cohen, Denise Ferreira da Silva, Ibrahim Gassama, Janet Halley, Tayyab Mahmud, Sally Merry, Hiroshi Motomura, Makau Mutua, Joane Nagel, Ebenezer Obadare, Diane Otto, Sherene Razack, Natsu Saito, and Robert Tsai.
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