14 DAY TRIAL // They call it "purification" or euphemistically "female circumcision", but it is in fact one of the most horrific practices that survive in the 21th century Africa: the female genital mutilation (FGM). Thousands of Egyptian girls undergo it annually, but the case of Budour Ahmed Shaker, 11, dead while having undergone FGM at a private clinic in the Egyptian village Mughagha in June hurried up the government to outlaw the custom, extremely widespread in Egypt (up to 95 % of the Egyptian women could have FGM).
Still, the ban faces resistance and the practice may go underground for long as most Egyptian families still regard FGM as protecting girls' chastity.
When time comes for girls to get married (which usually does not bypass 12 years of an age), they must face this operation.
"If a girl is not purified, she will just go hook up with men. This protects women's honor. Otherwise it will become just like America here and girls will go with guys. Those who say it doesn't happen are lying 100 %. There is not one person here not circumcised, and it will continue," said Asma Said, a 16-year-old secondary school student from Mughagha.
Many of the schoolgirls in the rural areas go through the practice, even if they are afraid by the surgery.
"No one can get married without it," said one Egyptian girl.
In Senegal, for example, FGM has been forbidden since 1999, but this has just intensified the practice. Personally, I met even Senegalese people with a PhD degree that approved the practice, motivating that this way, little girls are safe from rape ? Egypt banned completely FGM after Shaker died of an excessive dose of anesthesia while being cut.
Egypt's state-appointed Grand Mufti, the government's official arbiter of Islamic law, stated in June that FGM was forbidden by Islam.
Many people make the mistake of associating this practice with Islam. But this African custom predates the Islam spread in Africa and if many Islamic African communities practice it, it's due to the African religious syncretism: they combine Islam with local religions like they do it with Christianity, too. And African Christians (including Egyptian Christians) do practice the mutilation, too.
The practice seems to have originated in Egypt, during the Pharaohs' time and could have been spread across Africa due to the Arab slave traders. In the Arab world, the practice is rare, but it is widespread, besides Egypt, in Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia and a large area of Western Africa.
The Egyptian type of mutilation, called Pharaonic, is the worst: it means the partial or total removal of the female external genitalia and suture of the vaginal opening, and it is also practiced in Somalia, Sudan and Eritrea. In other African areas it involves just excising the clitoris and sometimes other female genitalia.
Side effects of FGM operation are hemorrhage, shock, severe infections and sexual dysfunction. Other serious long-term health effects are also common, like urinary and reproductive tract infections, caused by obstructed flow of urine and menstrual blood, various forms of scarring and sterility.
Most circumcised Egyptian women come from poor rural families of the Nile valley in southern Egypt. About 75 % of girls circumcised in Egypt are cut by medical personnel (doctors and nurses) who receive fees of $8.85-88.50.
In most African countries, the conditions are highly unhygienic (not to mentioning that the operation is performed without anesthetics) and the tool employed can be in many cases an oxidized blade. Due to these conditions, many girls get severe infections after the operation, which in some of the cases are even deadly if untreated. The procedure, when performed without any anesthetic, can lead to death through shock from immense pain or excessive bleeding.
In Egypt, a handful of girls die annually, due to a wrong dose of anesthesia or from hemorrhage or other complications, but around Africa, the annual toll is over 3,000.
"Some doctors, so that they feel better about themselves and more ethical in a way, say: 'I'll prick her' so she bleeds and her parents are happy ... I've heard a lot of doctors saying if I don't do it they will go to my fellow doctor who will do it," said Yasmine Wahba, child protection officer at UNICEF.
The government ban just made doctors demand higher fees to compensate the higher risk. In the southern locality of Edfu, a 7-year-old girl was brought to hospital in July after she bled while being cut in a village clinic. In another case, a nurse in a town south of Cairo operated 3 girls in just one day in their homes. The woman confessed and could spend up to two years in jail.
"At least the doctors will be scared. They will be scared because there is a lot of talk now of enforcing the law." said Wahba, During colonial times, in some countries, like Kenya, the FGM was used as a form of resistance against the colonial will. In other African countries, too, there is a legislation that forbids the practice, but has no control mechanisms. Such is the case in Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Ivory Coast, Djibouti, Guinea, Tanzania, Togo.
The most famous victim of the FGM is the Somali fashion model Waris Dirie, whose horrific experience is related in the autobiographic book "Desert flower".