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http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/26/doctor-jailed-egypt-first-fgm-conviction
Egypt - Doctor Jailed after Egypt’s 1st FGM Conviction
Raslan
Fadl sentenced to two years and three months over procedure that caused death
of 13-year-old girl.
Sohair
al-Bataa died during an FGM procedure in a village in northern Egypt.
Photograph: AP
Patrick Kingsley and Manu
Abdo in Cairo
26 January 2015 - A doctor has become the first in Egypt
to be convicted of female genital mutilation, seven years after the widely
practised procedure was first criminalised in the country.
Raslan Fadl was previously acquitted of the manslaughter of
13-year-old Sohair al-Bataa during an FGM procedure in a village in northern
Egypt. Prosecutors appealed against the verdict, and on Monday another court
found him guilty both of causing Sohair’s death and of mutilating her.
Fadl was sentenced to two years in jail for manslaughter
and a further three months for the FGM operation. His clinic was ordered to
close for a year. Sohair’s father was given a suspended three-month sentence
for allowing his daughter to be mutilated.
The Egyptian lawyer who spearheaded efforts to bring the
doctor to justice, Reda al-Danbouki, head of the Women’s Centre for Guidance
and Legal Awareness, said it was a landmark verdict. “Now Sohair al-Bataa can
lie peacefully in her grave in the knowledge that she has won her rights, and
the rights of every girl who has been circumcised,” Danbouki told the Guardian.
“We are happy that we still have fair judges like this who implement the law.”
Fadl, who remained at liberty during his trial, could not
be reached for comment on Monday. In previous interviews with the Guardian he
claimed the case was “all made up by these dogs’ rights people”, using a
derogatory term for human rights activists. He claimed that he operated on
Sohair to remove a wart rather than to mutilate her. “In every country in the
world you would carry out this operation,” Fadl said.
FGM is widely practised throughout Egypt, according to
the UN, which estimates that 91% of married Egyptian women between 15 and 49 –
across both Muslim and Christian communities – have been subjected to the
procedure. Campaigners hope cases such as Fadl’s will help persuade provincial
doctors to abandon the practice, despite the lucrative income that it brings.
“This verdict won’t eliminate FGM but at least doctors
will think 10 times before doing it,” said Danbouki. “Every time he thinks of
the money he’s being offered, he will remember this doctor spending time in
prison for two years and three months, with his clinic closed. And also every
father who thinks to do this to his daughter.”
The attitudes of Sohair’s neighbours in interviews with
the Guardian last year suggested campaigners face a long battle to eradicate a
practice ingrained in many rural communities.
“We circumcise all our children, they say it’s good for
our girls,” said Naga Shawky, a 40-year-old housewife, as she walked along
streets near Sohair’s home. “The law won’t stop anything, the villagers will
carry on. Our grandfathers did it and so shall we.”
Suad Abu-Dayyeh, a regional spokeswoman for Equality Now,
an international women’s rights group that has championed Sohair’s case
globally, said such attitudes underlined the need to start a debate about FGM
in the communities where the practice went unchallenged.
“I feel so excited and happy [about the verdict],” she
said. “But there is still a lot of work to do for our local partners – they
have really to go into the villages, talk to local leaders, local doctors. We
can’t just stop with this historic decision, although it is an encouraging
first step to ending FGM in Egypt.”