Egypt: Outrage over girl's death sparks circumcision ban

Health chiefs and religious authorities in Egypt have banned female circumcision after outrage following the death of a 12-year-old girl.

Badour Shaker died while undergoing the procedure in an illegal clinic in the southern town of Maghagh earlier this month. Her mother, Zeniab Abdel Ghani, told the Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper that she paid about 50 Egyptian pounds (€6.70) to a woman doctor to carry it out.

The mother also told the paper the doctor tried to bribe her to withdraw a lawsuit accusing the physician of murdering her daughter, in return for €2,200, but she refused.

A forensic inquiry into the case showed the girl’s death was caused by an anaesthesia overdose.

The case sparked widespread condemnation of female circumcision, or genital mutilation, and was closely followed in Egyptian newspapers, which also reported the girl had passed round sweets to pupils in her class on the day of her death, to celebrate her good grades.

It also evoked memories of a 1995 CNN television documentary depicting a barber circumcising a 10-year-old girl in a Cairo slum.

On Thursday, the Egyptian Health Ministry issued a decree stating that it was “prohibited for any doctors, nurses, or any other person to carry out any cut of, flattening or modification of any natural part of the female reproductive system, either in government hospitals, non-government hospitals or any other places”.

It warned that violators would be punished, but did not specify the penalty. The ban is not as enforceable as a law, which requires passage in the national legislature.

And the country’s supreme religious authorities stressed that Islam was against female circumcision.

“It’s prohibited, prohibited, prohibited,” Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa said on the privately-owned al-Mahwar network.

Female genital mutilation usually involves the removal of the clitoris and other parts of female genitalia. Those who practise it say it tames a girl’s sexual desire and maintains her honour.

It is practised by Muslims and Christians alike, deeply rooted in the Nile Valley region and parts of sub-Saharan Africa, and is also done in Yemen and Oman.

A 2003 survey by Unicef said 97% of married women in Egypt had undergone genital mutilation.

A recent study by Egypt’s Ministry of Health and Population found that 50.3% of girls aged between 10 and 18 had been circumcised.

While top clerics insist the practice has nothing to do with Islam, parents, especially in villages and Cairo slums, believe they are helping their daughters. They think circumcision is necessary for cleanliness and to protect a girl’s virginity before marriage.

Opponents say girls can bleed to death, suffer chronic urinary infections and have life-threatening complications in childbirth.

The Al-Masry Al-Youm daily reported the doctor in Shaker’s case denied allegations of malpractice and said the girl was in a “bad condition” to start with, and was immediately transferred to a regular hospital where she died. The doctor was not identified.