NASW-NJ ANNUAL CONFERENCE PREVIEW
In the Name of Culture?: Social Workers Response to Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and Forced Marriage Situations Tuesday's Keynote Presenters. Top: Mariama Diallo, LCSW. Bottom: Bushra Husain, LCSW.
18 March 2020 | www.naswnj.org
Although forced marriage and female genital mutilation (FGM) are internationally recognized as serious human rights violations, millions of women and girls around the world today live with the physically and psychologically damaging consequences of these practices. Moreover, forced marriage and FGM are not confined to distant shores. In 2013, more than 500,000 women and girls were estimated to be at risk of FGM across the United States (Population Reference Bureau 2013). In 2011, a national survey found as many as 3,000 known and suspected cases of forced marriage in the United States in immigrant communities from 56 different countries, as well as nonimmigrant communities (Tahirih Justice Center 2011). However, these issues are often underreported and may not be
seen by many service providers and law enforcement officers as forms of genderbased violence. Tuesday’s Keynote address at the NASW-NJ Annual Conference, presented by Mariama Diallo, LCSW and Bushra Husain, LCSW, will delve further into this topic and explore the fine line we tread when differentiating cultural practice from abusive and harmful behavior. Diallo, who grew up in Guinea, a small country in West Africa, says she lived in a world where gender-based violence was considered the norm, according to a December 2019 press release issued by the Rutgers University School of Social Work. “It is so ingrained in the culture that it is hard
