CAIRO: Two Egyptian girls suffered massive blood loss after traditional birth attendants (daya) performed female genital mutilation (FGM) on them in Fayoum, an hour south of Cairo. The emergency room at the General Hospital in the town received the two girls and gave them blood transfers and stitched them up to close the bleeding. Doctors at the hospital called the police, who questioned the father of the two girls, but refused to tell of the daya or press charges. FGM is banned in Egypt and any doctors or medical staff involved in the operation could lose their medical license and face time in prison. Egypt banned the practice in June 2007, after an 11 year-old-girl died on an operation table at a private clinic in Minya, south of Cairo. Bedour Ahmed Shaker was given an excessive dose of anesthetics and never woke up, reports stated. The father of the child had sued the doctor for medical malpractice, but he himself was not liable in front of the law. Al-Azhar, the Sunni world's top authority on Islamic law, came out the same year and banned the practice, saying that Islam is “innocent of such practices,” a first in the organization's history after it had taken a neutral stance toward the practice for years. Coptic Pope Shonouda soon followed the Islamic clerks footsteps, saying that the Bible mentions no such practice and it should be banned. According to the World Health Organization an estimated 100 to 140 million girls and women worldwide are currently living with the consequences of FGM. 90 million of those women live in Africa. BM
