11 Facts About Khalid Adem

Khalid Misri Adem is an Ethiopian who was both the first person prosecuted and first person convicted for female genital mutilation in the United States, stemming from charges that he had personally excised his 2-year-old daughter's clitoris with a pair of scissors.

Gwinnett County prosecutors alleged that in 2001 Khalid Adem had used a pair of scissors to remove the clitoris of his two-year-old daughter in the kitchen of the Duluth apartment Khalid Adem shared with his wife, Fortunate.

Khalid Adem denied he had excised his daughter's clitoris or asked anyone else to do it.

Khalid Adem's lawyer argued that Fortunate's accusations were the result of the acrimonious divorce and custody battle the couple went through in 2003, during which Fortunate received sole custody of the girl.

Fortunate claimed she did not discover her daughter's amateur clitoridectomy until an argument with her husband in 2003 about the practice of female genital cutting, during which, according to Fortunate, Khalid Adem implied it had already occurred to their daughter.

Khalid Adem claimed the reverse, that it was Fortunate who had revealed to him that their daughter had had her clitoris removed, and that she was falsely accusing him to obtain leverage for the custody battle.

The prosecution's inability to identify the "second man" who allegedly helped Khalid Adem perform the operation was used to imply the story was false.

On November 2,2006, Khalid Adem was convicted of aggravated battery and cruelty to children and sentenced to two terms of 15 years, concurrent, the first 10 years to be served in prison and the remaining five years on probation.

Khalid Adem received a fine in the amount of $5,000, with an additional $32 a month for a probation and supervision fee.

Khalid Adem was however not tried under this law, as his actions occurred before it went into effect.

In March 2017, Khalid Adem was deported by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to his native Ethiopia, having served 10 years in prison.