There is a story in today’s New York Times about Muslim women in France who opt for surgery to create the illusion of virginity upon marriage.

“In my culture, not to be a virgin is to be dirt,” said the student, perched on a hospital bed as she awaited surgery on Thursday. “Right now, virginity is more important to me than life.”

Actually, for some of these women virginity is life. Take the case of Morsal Obeidi, 16. Her brother Ahmed stabbed her 20 times after deciding his sister, living in Hamburg, had become unclean.

Here’s more from the Times story:

One Muslim born in Macedonia said she opted for the operation to avoid being punished by her father after an eight-year relationship with her boyfriend.

“I was afraid that my father would take me to a doctor and see whether I was still a virgin,” said the woman, 32, who owns a small business and lives on her own in Frankfurt. “He told me, ‘I will forgive everything but not if you have thrown dirt on my honor.’ I wasn’t afraid he would kill me, but I was sure he would have beaten me.”

[…]

Those who perform the procedure say they are empowering patients by giving them a viable future and preventing them from being abused — or even killed — by their fathers or brothers.

Performing surgery on someone’s genitals in order to avoid murder at the hands of a relative can be called a lot of things. But “empowering”? Maybe something got lost in translation.