NY Times Notices Cultures Are Not Equal to Women
08/12/2005
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Here's a rare statement of the politically incorrect in the New York Times, observing that African women endure far more violence in their lives than their counterparts elsewhere ["Entrenched Epidemic: Wife-Beatings in Africa"].

Women suffer from violence in every society. In few places, however, is the abuse more entrenched, and accepted, than in sub-Saharan Africa. One in three Nigerian women reported having been physically abused by a male partner, according to the latest study, conducted in 1993. The wife of the deputy governor of a northern Nigerian province told reporters last year that her husband beat her incessantly, in part because she watched television movies. One of President Olusegun Obasanjo's appointees to a national anticorruption commission was allegedly killed by her husband in 2000, two days after she asked the state police commissioner to protect her.

With such brutal and endemic sexism, why does Washington continue to welcome and even encourage immigration from parts of Africa ["More Africans Enter U.S. Than in Days of Slavery"]? In fact, the Diversity Visa program allows generous slots for immigrants from Sudan, where the brutal torture of female genital mutilation (FGM) is common. (FGM stats for African countries here.) Many new African immigrants are from Nigeria, where the majority inflict FGM on their daughters.

The government investigates the background of individuals to keep out torturers, yet allows entire societies whose cultural norms constitute torture, such as Somalia where FGM prevalence is 98 percent. But not only are Somalis permitted, many thousands are given the red carpet treatment as refugees with taxpayer-funded welfare benefits quickly bestowed.

Immigration policy still supports multiculturalism, although the failed ideology is rapidly falling in favor even among some elites. All cultures are NOT morally equal, a fact particularly observable in the area of women's rights, social standing and safety. At the least, the U.S. should not welcome cultures whose normal behavior is criminal here.

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