CAIRO: In June 2007, 12-year-old Badour Shakour died as a result of a circumcision operation. The death sparked a battle within the country over the use of the controversial medical procedure. Her death galvanized women and children’s rights groups to action, where they pushed for more stringent penalties against those who carry out female genital mutilation (FGM). Shakour’s cause of death was an overdose of anesthetic, but her memory was the cause of an awakening that reached to the upper echelons of government. In summer 2008, Egypt’s Parliament passed a law that ostensibly bans the controversial procedure. Not that it should have needed to legislate against FGM – it was already officially banned in the country during the mid-nineties – but with doctors continuing to perform the procedure on girls as young as five, Parliament felt it was necessary to intercede. The new law stipulated a fine of 1,000 Egyptian pounds ($185) to 5,000 Egyptian pounds ($900) and a prison term of anywhere between three months and two years if caught performing FGM. However, the efforts by the government and international and local rights groups to end FGM, a recent World Health Organization study, titled “Investigating Women's Sexuality in Relation to Female Genital Mutilation in Egypt,” said the practice continues in the country and a major obstacle is the deep-rootness of the procedure. “The main reason we found for the continuation of the practice is a drive to control a woman’s sexuality before marriage as a means of ensuring her virginity and therefore her marriageability by delivering an intact bride to her prospective husband,†the study said. The study said many of those surveyed saw FGM as a “family affair†and a personal decision, in which the government should have no say in. “Therefore they are highly skeptical that regulations and laws recently introduced to stamp out the practice will actually succeed,†the report said. A 2005 report by UNICEF contended that 97 percent of single Egyptian women between 15 and 49 have undergone some form of FGM, although other estimates put the number at 70 percent. Member of Parliament Mohamed al-Omda of a small opposition party, brought his three daughters to the floor of the People’s Assembly in protest of the ban last year. One of his daughters carried a sign that read: “No to any attempt to forbid what is divinely allowed. No to any attempt to allow what is divinely forbidden.†Two of his three daughters are circumcised. Many conservative Muslims in the country maintain that the practice is condoned in Islam. The country’s Muslim Brotherhood has come under fire over many of their members’ denouncements of Parliament’s bill. The powerful Islamic group, and many Islamic scholars, argues that the ban is akin to “imposing Western ideals†on Egyptian society, which they maintain is based in Sharia. UNICEF estimated that three million girls in Africa undergo FGM annually, including in Egypt. The practice is a violation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted in 1989. Although the Egyptian government has banned the procedure, it remains common, especially among the rural communities outside the capital Cairo and Alexandria. A 2005 Egypt Demographic and Health Survey, the majority of FGM procedures have been performed by trained medical personnel. Medical workers involvement in the procedure, human rights groups and doctors in the country, argue is a major reason the procedure continues. “We have to work slowly and cannot expect everything to change in one law. Egyptians are stubborn and if they believe this is part of their religion, then it is very difficult to convince them otherwise, even if they are trained doctors,†said a female doctor at the country’s Doctor’s Syndicate. She asked not to be named, as the controversy continues inside its doors. With children in danger, the doctor argues that Egyptians must move forward in order to limit these sorts of practices. “We are struggling as a country and until everyone is being educated, it is so difficult to achieve progress on anything, let alone FGM.†Like so many controversial issues facing Egypt today, the seemingly endless battle between secularism and Islam continue to put opposing sides on the defensive. BM
