IF none of the Islamist candidates managed to gain victory in the coming presidential elections they should blame no one but the present parliament. Although this parliament enjoys a majority of the Islamists belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party and the Salafist's En-Nur Party, their performance has failed to serve programmes of the Islamists candidates. Instead, their suggestions over amending and passing certain laws have scared the public from the so-called development programme being propounded by the presidential candidates of Islamist background. One of the shocking suggestions recently made by a Salafist parliamentarian stipulated legalising Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), the barbaric practice that civil society and medical experts long struggled against until having FGM fully incriminated by the law. The Salafist MP Nasser Shaker seeks to amend the article included in the penal code that incriminates FGM. He urges an amendment such that FGM would be allowed only in hospitals supervised by consulting doctors. In taking this stand, the parliamentarian proves that he is being controlled by tradition rather than guided by religious belief. The late Sheikh of Al-Azhar, the present Grand Mufti of the Republic as well as Sheikh Yousef el-Qaradawi, a Muslim Brotherhood leader, made clear at an international conference organised on this topic in Al-Azhar Conference Centre, that GMT is not a religious teaching but a social tradition. Therefore, they left it to the physicians to judge its effect on women's sexual and psychological health. In this conference, held a few years ago, different scientists and doctors made it clear that such a practice causes terrible harm to female physical, psychological and sexual health on the contrary to circumcision recommended for males, which proves beneficial for health and is recommended in Islam. They even condemned any medical practitioner carrying out such an operation on girls that has never been part of the medical curricula in any medical school in Egypt. Therefore, a doctor conducting such illegal surgery should be incriminated and punished for causing major harm to the girl, subjecting her to a cruel practice that is not present in most Muslim communities. The other issue the Islamists raised in parliament and is proof of their adopting an anti-female strategy is the suggestion to amend the civil status law. They want the age for parental custody lowered to seven for males and nine for girls instead of 15 according to the present law. It is true that this law has proved to have some deficiencies, pertaining to the visiting rights for the non-custodian parent, but the amendment was prompted by the idea of erasing all laws proposed by the National Women's Council under the sponsorship of Suzanne Mubarak. The non-custodian parents, mainly fathers, have long suffered from a lack of communication with their children in the custody of their ex-wives because of unfair legislation. It requires the father to meet his son or daughter once a week in a public place, at that time one of the premises of the then ruling National Democratic Party. Evidently, such meetings held under the nose of the mother or any of her relatives, lack a friendly atmosphere and prevent the father from enjoying close communication with his children. Those divorced fathers kept calling for amending this law so that they can see their children in their own homes or enjoy taking them on holiday outside their place of abode or visiting the paternal grandparent's house. However, the legislators gave no proper attention to the urgent needs of such fathers and their families and their children. Thus, any suggestion to amend the visiting law should not touch on the children's right to be raised by their mothers until the age of puberty; agreed by scholars at the Islamic Research Centre to be 15. The legislators even gave the judge the right to order that the girl be kept with her mother until her marriage and the boy until adulthood if this is seen to be in the children's interests. No one can deny that the Egyptian women suffered injustice in the past under the old civil status law pertaining to divorce as well as custody rights. Accordingly, some amendments made in the 1980s and later on in 2005 intended to ensure women's right of enjoying the custody of their children for the longest possible period of their childhood, which is also perceived by psychologists as healthy for the children. However, such protection given to women and children should also be accompanied with fair rights for fathers to enjoy good and strong communications with their children, while living under custody of their ex-wives, so that the children will not grow up distanced from their fathers. Correspondingly, when they reach the age of 15 , the children will not reject coming under the custody of their fathers. Of course, there are always exceptions and some women are not honest in their custody of their children, especially in helping them preserving good relations with their fathers. The opposite is also true as some fathers could corrupt a child's mind over his or her mother so that they might refuse to live with her. Herein comes the importance of the role of a social institution to supervise the condition of children of divorced parents and see what is right with their life and how well the custodian is raising his or her children without violating the rights of the other partner. Instead of dealing with such social and family problem via adjusting some already amended legislation, it is preferable for parliamentarians, the media, the religious institution of Al-Azhar and the civil society to enhance public awareness over such social malaise. They also need to emphasise the importance of putting the children's welfare uppermost – above any differences between the divorced couples – rather than utilising them as tools to punish the ex-wife or ex-husband.
