Egypt Imposes Total Ban On Female Genital Cutting

Main Category: Women's Health / Gynecology
Also Included In: Sexual Health / STDs
Article Date: 05 Jul 2007 - 12:00 PDT

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Egypt recently announced that it will impose a total ban on female genital cutting, rescinding a provision that allowed the practice to be performed by qualified physicians in exceptional cases, BBC News reports (Abdelhadi, BBC News, 6/28).

Female genital cutting -- sometimes referred to as female circumcision or female genital mutilation -- is a practice in which there is a partial or full removal of the labia, clitoris or both. About 6,000 girls undergo genital mutilation daily, and the World Health Organization estimates that 100 million to 140 million women worldwide are circumcised. At least 90% of women who undergo genital cutting live in developing countries -- such as Djibouti, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, Somalia and Sudan -- while almost no women undergo the practice in Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, according to UNICEF (Kaiser Daily Women's Health Policy Report, 12/7/06).

A spokesperson for the ministry of health said that under the ban, no member of the medical profession would be allowed to perform the operation in public or private clinics, adding that any person breaks the law will be punished. The country's top religious authorities, including the head of the Coptic Church and Grand Mufti, have expressed unequivocal support for the ban, BBC News reports (BBC News, 6/28).

Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa on Sunday said the practice is not allowed under Islamic law. He added, "The harmful tradition of [female] circumcision that is practiced in Egypt in our era is forbidden" (Reuters, 6/24). According to BBC News, the announcement comes after a young girl recently died while undergoing the procedure in a private medical clinic in Egypt (BBC News, 6/28).

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