In Egypt, a Rising Push Against Genital Cutting
New York Times ^ | 9-20-07 | Mona el-Naggar
nytimes.com
KAFR Al MANSHI ABOU HAMAR, Egypt — The men in this poor farming community were seething. A 13-year-old girl was brought to a doctor’s office to have her clitoris removed, a surgery considered necessary here to preserve chastity and honor. The girl died, but that was not the source of the outrage. After her death, the government shut down the clinic, and that got everyone stirred up.
[snip]
For centuries Egyptian girls, usually between the ages of 7 and 13, have been taken to have the procedure done, sometimes by a doctor, sometimes by a barber or whoever else in the village would do it. As recently as 2005, a government health survey showed that 96 percent of the thousands of married, divorced or widowed women interviewed said they had undergone the procedure — a figure that astounds even many Egyptians. In the language of the survey, “The practice of female circumcision is virtually universal among women of reproductive age in Egypt.”
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