WUNRN
Equality Now Advocacy on Case: http://www.equalitynow.org/press_release/equality_now_and_partners_call_for_swift_prosecution_of_perpetrators_of_fgm
EGYPT - LAUNCH OF FIRST PROSECUTION
FOR FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION AFTER GIRL DIES
Dr Raslan Fadl and father of the 13-year-old girl who died during cutting
are the first to be prosecuted in
By Patrick Kingsley in
Sohair al-Bata'a, a 13-year-old Egyptian girl who died after being
subjected to female genital mutilation. Human rights groups forced the
government to reopen the case
A doctor will stand trial for the first time in Egypt
on charges of female genital mutilation, after a 13-year-old girl died
following an alleged operation in his clinic last year.
In a landmark case, Dr Raslan Fadl is the first
doctor to be prosecuted for FGM in
Sohair al-Bata'a died in Fadl's
care in June 2013, and her family admitted that she had been victim to an FGM
operation carried out at their request.
The case was initially dropped after an official
medical report claimed that Sohair had been treated for genital warts, and that
she died from an allergic reaction to penicillin. But after a campaign by local
rights groups and the international organisation Equality Now, as well as an investigation
by
"It is a very important
case," said Hala Youssef, head of the NPC, which had pushed for the case
to be reopened. "It's the first time that somebody in
According to Unicef, 91% of married Egyptian women aged
between 15 and 49 have been subjected to FGM, 72% of them by doctors. Unicef
research suggests that support for the practice is gradually falling: 63% of
women in the same age bracket supported it in 2008, compared with 82% in 1995.
But according to research, FGM
still has high support in areas with a lower standard of education, where
proponents claim mutilation makes women less likely to commit adultery.
Families living near where Sohair
died have not been put off the practice, says Reda Maarouf, a local lawyer
involved in the case; they simply go to other doctors.
Sohair's family are reported to
oppose her father's prosecution. "It's a cultural problem, not
religious," said Vivian Foad, an official who led the NPC's investigation.
"Both Muslims and Christians do it. They believe it protects a woman's
chastity."
Some Islamic fundamentalists
claim FGM is a religious duty, but it is not nearly as widespread in most other
majority-Muslim countries in the
There are four main methods of committing FGM,
according to the World Health Organisation,
and Abu-Dayyeh said the practice of removing a girl's clitoris and labia was
probably the most common in
"It's a very painful
procedure and I don't know why they do it. It's the worst one," said
Abu-Dayyeh, who visited Sohair's grave in Mansoura, northern
Foad hopes
Two years on,
Abu-Dayyeh said Fadl's prosecution
was just the start. The case would count for little unless the doctor was
jailed and an anti-FGM awareness campaign reached the country's poorest
districts, she said.
"Now you need much more
work. And it has to be done far away from