Egypt's action against FGM - Features - Al-Ahram Weekly
In September 2021, an Egyptian court issued a landmark ruling sentencing a nurse to 10 years in prison for performing FGM on a minor. The girl's father was also sentenced to three years for authorising the procedure.
The declining rate and rigid punishments did not prevent a tragic fatality in 2020, however. In Upper Egypt, a young girl, Nada, lost her life following an FGM procedure conducted by an obstetrician at the Al-Rahma Hospital. Both the doctor and the girl's parents received prison sentences.
The physician claimed that the procedure had been a laser cauterisation to remove a tumour in the genital area and that the fatality resulted from an allergic reaction to penicillin. However, the forensic report contradicted his testimony.
The incident attracted little media attention, having taken place during the global outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, which dominated public discourse and media coverage at the time.
After several months of incarceration, the doctor was released and returned to his village, where he was received with jubilation from his family and local community. Belonging to a prominent family in Upper Egypt, the doctor faced no social stigma or reproach upon his return, according to statements from his relatives and social media posts from March 2021.
The girl's parents, also released a few months after the incident, and coming from a lower socioeconomic background, refrained from speaking to the media, saying they had rather focus on raising their remaining daughters.
Al-Ahram Weekly reached out to a nephew of the doctor to establish contact with him, but the nephew said that 'my uncle has retired from medical practice and will no longer be available for communication.'
'FGM is a crime that is not subject to a statute of limitations. It is a wound whose pain endures, regardless of how long ago it occurred,' Asmaa (not her real name) said, breaking down in tears as she recounted her harrowing experience of circumcision.
Now 63 years old and the mother of two sons and a daughter, Asmaa still carries the deep emotional and physical scars left by the procedure
'FGM was the reason for my divorce. I couldn't endure married life. I gave birth to my three children, but I never felt content as a wife,' she said.
She added that her parents had insisted she be circumcised at the age of 12. 'It caused me immense pain. I still remember that traumatic experience vividly. It was the reason I stood up against my parents when they wanted to circumcise my sister, eight years my junior. Naturally, I never allowed my daughter to be circumcised.'
At a meeting of the National Committee for the Elimination of Female Genital Mutilation held in June this year, Minister of Social Solidarity Maya Morsi said FGM is not only a violation against women but is also a crime against childhood, against the body, and against a person's future.
'FGM is not a social tradition or a family custom; it is a festering wound that reopens every day,' she stated.
According to official statistics, women's support for FGM in Egypt has plummeted from 75 per cent in 2000 to 30 per cent in 2021.
While Morsi lauded the progress, 'the journey is far from over,' she said. 'Projections estimate that seven million girls in Egypt remain at risk of being subjected to the practice between 2015 and 2030.'
To meet the United Nations goal of eradicating FGM by 2030, the pace of intervention must be accelerated to 15 times its current rate, she remarked.
DECLINE
'The decline in FGM rates cannot be attributed to a single initiative or isolated strategy. Rather, it is the outcome of a century-long continuum of discourse, societal interaction, and gradual transformation,' Vivian Fouad, a development expert and former coordinator of the National Strategy to Combat Female Genital Mutilation, told the Weekly.
'Many may mistakenly believe that awareness campaigns, whether through direct public engagement or the traditional or social media, are sufficient on their own to transform the awareness and behaviour of Egyptian families towards this crime,' she added.
'But this is fundamentally untrue. Changing individual and collective consciousness is not an instant process, but a gradual progression that unfolds over time. It should be supported with scientific, religious, and legal information to break the taboos long associated with FGM,' Fouad noted.
She argued that shifting public opinion against FGM has taken place over four stages across the past century, or since the ushering in of Egypt's modern era.
The first phase, from the early 20th century to the 1950s, saw the majority of parents circumcising their girls. But this was the same period that saw a rise in education and the establishment of the Egyptian University in Cairo.
In 1928, Ali Pasha Ibrahim, the first Egyptian Dean of the Qasr Al-Aini Faculty of Medicine, stated that FGM would not be taught at the Faculty of Medicine. Religious perspectives also began to shift during this period. In 1905, Sheikh Rashid Reda said FGM was not obligatory in Islam. In the 1940s, Sheikh Hussein Makhlouf, grand mufti of Egypt of the time, echoed the same opinion.
The second phase, from the 1950s through the 1990s, saw the first interventions by the government and religious institutions against FGM. In 1959, Noureddin Tarraf, the then minister of health, banned the practice, and the then grand imam of Al-Azhar Sheikh Mahmoud Shaltout issued a religious edict declaring that 'we have no reason to advocate FGM, either religiously, morally, or medically.'
These interventions were in line with the United Nations Commission on Human Rights initial deliberations on FGM in 1952 and a 1958 Resolution issued by the United Nations Economic and Social Council, which classified FGM as a harmful socio-cultural practice.
FGM was also addressed in both the press and literature at the time, most notably in writer Fathi Ghanem's acclaimed novel Zeinab and the Throne (1972). Writer Nawal Al-Saadawi also recounted her harrowing personal experience with female circumcision in her book The Hidden Face of Eve (1977).
Fouad believes these interventions contributed to raising the awareness of a limited group of urban middle-class families, some of whom chose not to subject their daughters to FGM. The Ministry of Health's 1995 Demographic and Health Survey estimated that three per cent of Egyptian women of reproductive age (15 to 49 years) had not undergone circumcision.
The third phase (1994-2008), Fouad said, was marked by heightened societal debate about FGM but little decline in the rates of the practice.
FGM was still a controversial matter, especially following the 1994 United Nations International Conference on Population and Development, held in Cairo and seeing international representation.
FGM emerged in the Egyptian media and political discourse not merely as a traditional cultural practice, but also as a battleground of political contention. Political Islam groups and allied conservative factions defended FGM as a symbol of religious and national identity against the forces of the West.
Treading the same path, Sheikh Ali Gad Al-Haq, grand imam of Al-Azhar from 1982 to 1996, said that circumcision was a religious duty for both males and females and an Islamic rite. His successor, Mohamed Sayed Tantawi, adopted a more moderate, albeit not definitive, view of FGM, saying that it was not a religious obligation in Islamic law. However, he added that it was up to medical professionals to determine whether the procedure was necessary in individual cases.
Fouad noted that in this third phase the Ministry of Health's stand against FGM was not conclusive. In 1966, Ismail Sallam, the then minister of health, had prohibited doctors from performing FGM, but permitting it in cases deemed medically necessary. This policy enabled physicians to continue carrying out FGM.
During this period, the rate of FGM in Egypt skyrocketed to 97 per cent among women aged 15 to 49. Political debate about FGM continued, the extremist religious tide rose, especially in the countryside, and the opinion of official religious and medical institutions about FGM was not conclusive.
CHALLENGES
Amid these challenges, the first national programme to combat FGM was launched in 2003 under the auspices of the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood chaired by Ambassador Moushira Khattab.
The programme's principal objective was to foster a supportive social and cultural environment that would empower Egyptian families to abandon this form of violence against women. Between 2003 and 2008, it implemented a series of measures in this direction.
A critical turning point occurred in June 2007, when 13-year-old Bodour died at the hands of a physician in Minya during a circumcision procedure.
At that point, the programme mobilised key religious, medical, legislative, and media institutions in adopting firm stances against FGM. In 2007, Egypt's Dar Al-Iftaa under the leadership of Ali Gomaa issued an edict declaring FGM as haram (religiously forbidden). In the same year, Hatem Al-Gabali, the then minister of health, issued a decree banning all healthcare professionals from performing FGM in any setting, and the Doctors Syndicate released a statement prohibiting physicians from engaging in the practice. In 2008, parliament approved a law criminalising FGM.
The fourth phase, from 2008 until the present, Fouad said, has seen several milestones initiated by or coordinated with the programme, the most notable of which have been the successes of civil society, government entities, and media institutions in countering efforts by extremist religious groups to revoke the 2008 law criminalising FGM and to reintroduce the practice during the Muslim Brotherhood's rule in 2012.
In 2013, the Supreme Constitutional Court rejected a lawsuit filed by religious extremists to annul the 2007 ministerial decree and the 2008 legislation criminalising FGM. FGM was reclassified from a misdemeanour in 2008 to a felony between 2016 and 2021.
The first enforcement of the anti-FGM law took place in 2015 seven years after the enactment of the law, when the physician and the father of Soheir Al-Batea, a girl from Daqahliya who had died during the procedure, were sentenced to periods in prison.
In May 2019, a National Committee to Combat FGM was established by a decision of the prime minister, in collaboration with the National Council for Women and the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood. Law 10/2021 increased the maximum penalty for FGM to 20 years' imprisonment.
The Ministry of Social Solidarity has submitted a proposal containing a host of measures aimed at protecting girls against FGM, including the integration of anti-FGM awareness messages into the Takaful and Karama social welfare programmes that reach 30 million Egyptians, as well as offering in-kind incentives to families that do not circumcise their girls.
Shelters for women survivors of violence have been opened to operate around the clock, and the Ministry of Social Solidarity's hotline (16439) has been designated to receive reports of violence against women. The committee has also highlighted examples of Egyptian families who have chosen to abandon FGM, despite the restrictive traditions surrounding it.
'There is now a high level of awareness regarding the dangers of FGM, thanks to the engagement of both governmental and civil society institutions. Breaking the taboo has led to legislative reforms and the imposition of prison sentences, even for fathers who authorise FGM,' said Mona Ezzat, chair of the Board of Trustees of the Elnoon Foundation for Family Care.
'Highlighting the fatal incidents of FGM has heightened families' recognition of the gravity of the practice and its harmful consequences. These achievements are the result of cumulative and sustained efforts,' Ezzat said.
'Sadly, however, progress remains slow,' she added. 'This is largely due to deep-rooted cultural legacies linking FGM to the control, discipline, and moral education of girls. Dismantling this conservative, patriarchal mindset that continues to shape society's perception of women is key to eradicating FGM.'
* A version of this article appears in print in the 3 July, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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