Tell on those people
It can only be welcome news as a £20,000 reward for information on practitioners of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in the UK is accompanied with a law that expressly forbids the practice in Egypt.
The practice had already been banned in Egypt since 1997, but a UNICEF report in 2005 indicated that 97% of Egyptian women between the ages of 15 and 49 have been circumcised.
It is heartening to know that the Grand Mufti (Highest Official of Islamic law) of Egypt has clearly stated that there is no religious basis for FGM that it is forbidden by Islam and there is no Christian law on the practice either.
This is a rotten "tradition of men" that has become a kind of doctrinal belief system such that there are people who think there is a religious obligation to commit what is literally a heinous mutilating crime against the humanity of pre-pubescent girls.
Patriarchy denying women's rights
As one commentator did state, this thing thrives in highly patriarchal societies where the rights of women are suppressed in servitude to men and where the premise is about keeping the women pure - that kind of purity however, does not seem to pertain to men.
Now, Christianity and Islam does support male circumcision and this is part of the Abrahamic covenant which God made with Abraham - all of his male seed were to have their foreskin cut off - this religious practise does also have health benefits and has been advocated by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as an anti-HIV/AIDS drive.
None of the beneficial experience can be alluded to the same barbaric practice on girls apart from sexual dysfunction, psychological trauma, tetanus, blood poisoning and irreparable damage to the urethra, bladder and vulva.
One in five girls are said to die during this procedure to keep up with tradition.
No safety in formal medicine
This "rite of passage" which presumably keeps girls chaste got its worst publicity just over two weeks ago when astute parents decided to use the medical profession rather than traditional charlatans to perform the procedure on their 11-year old daughter.
The hapless and helpless girl was given too much anaesthetic - now this is humane compared to videos of girls shrieking with utter terror being held down by their mothers and other related woman folk as her genitalia is being cut and sliced in the fulfilment of some long held tradition.
The girl died, but not in vain, there was such uproar about it that this law would also make the medical profession liable to prosecution for performing the procedure on anyone, it is hopefully a fully enforceable ban .
Vengeful mothers on helpless daughters
I wrote about the banning of FGM in Eritrea in April and the more this practice is explicitly outlawed in societies that think their traditions are dying out if they do not continue to practise barbarity and savagery the better the chance for the more amenable parts of their traditions to survive.
The problem is however growing in immigrant communities in Diaspora where some tend to be greater adherents than those in the indigenous homelands because of the nostalgic complex that beclouds the judgement of some in societies that appear alien to them.
Any information leading to the stoppage of these acts as well as the naming, shaming and prosecution of FGM practitioners must be very welcome, women who have lost their things should not vengefully visit this thing on generations after them, their daughters and grand-daughters, there is no use or benefit from this practice and it most stop forthwith in all societies civilised or uncivilised.
I am sorry if anyone has suffered this kind of mutilation, but it must stop with you and go no further.
Reference
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