Twelve-year-old girl dies during circumcision in Egypt
Front page / Society
06/29/2007 17:06 Source: AP ©
Religious and health authorities of Egypt banned female circumcision after a 12-year girl had died on the hands of a doctor, performing the operation.
Girls who undergo botched operations - along with doctors, amateurs without anesthesia often still perform the circumcision - can bleed to death, suffer from chronic urinary infections and have life-threatening complications in childbirth. (aussie_news_vi
The girl, Badour Shaker, died earlier in June while being circumcised in an illegal clinic in the southern town of Maghagh. Her mother, Zeniab Abdel Ghani, told the Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper that she had paid 50 Egyptian pounds (about US$9 dollars) to a female physician to perform the procedure.
The mother also told the paper that the doctor later tried to bribe her to withdraw a lawsuit accusing the physician of murder, in return for 15,000 Egyptian pounds (about US$3,000), but she refused.
A forensic investigation into the case showed the girl's death was caused by an anesthesia overdose during the procedure.
The case sparked widespread condemnation and was closely followed in Egyptian papers, which also reported that Shaker had passed out sweets to pupils in her class earlier 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 on female circumcision, stating that it is "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 or any other places."
It warned that violators of the ban 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.
Female genital mutilation, FGM, or as it is often called, female circumcision, usually involves the removal of the clitoris and other parts of female genitalia. Those who practice it believe it tames a girl's sexual desires and maintains her honor.
It is practiced by Muslims and Christians alike, deeply rooted in the Nile Valley region and parts of sub-Saharan African, and is also practiced in Yemen and Oman.
The ban by the health ministry marks a return to a 1950s government order on Egypt's hospitals and doctors against FGM.
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