On June 13, 1996 in the case of In re Fauziya KASINGA, the Board of Immigration Appeals (the appeals court overseeing the nation’s immigration judges), overruled an immigration judge and held that the practice of female genital mutilation (“FGM”) can be the basis for a grant of asylum under section 208 of the Immigration and Nationality Act. The case involved a female member of the Tchamba-Kunsuntu Tribe of Togo. The case involved a nineteen year old woman who fled Togo for Germany after she learned that her guardian was planning to force the woman to undergo the tribe’s customary ritual of genital mutilation. The woman also presented evidence showing she was sold into a polygamous marriage to a husband twenty-six years her senior. According to the court records, this normally occurs for women at the age of fifteen, but the girl was protected from this by her then living father. According to the Board of Immigration Appeals (the “BIA”), the background materials submitted with the application document that the female genital mutilation practiced in some African countries, such as Togo, is of an extreme nature causing permanent damage, and not just a minor form of genital ritual. The BIA further held that this practice clearly inflicts harm or suffering upon the girl or woman who undergoes it. The BIA approved the application holding that the applicant was eligible for asylum because she has a well-founded fear of persecution on account of her membership in a particular social group in Togo.
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