Female Genital Cutting in Egypt

I recently read an article on msnbc.com that caught my eye for two reasons: 1) it was about Egypt, a country that I visited earlier this year, and 2) it was about female genital cutting (FGC), a topic about which I wrote a paper in my third year of law school.

The article is entitled, "Effort in Egypt fights against mutilating girls: Genitals cut on 96 percent of married Egyptian women; girls face same fate." Click HERE to access the article.

Now, before I go any further, I have to address the anticipated (properly or not) protest of one of my friends who often visits Egypt and is sometimes highly critical of his Egyptian friends for not being conformist enough to Egyptian (or more accurately, Islamic) practices. If my assumption -- that he supports, or at least condones, female genital cutting -- is incorrect, then I apologize.

If my assumption is correct, though, then consider this, kind reader: FGC is a cultural practice, not a religious (i.e., Muslim or Christian) practice. As the article indicates, both Muslim and Christian religious leaders have spoken out against FGC. Also, the fight against FGC in Egypt is being led by Egyptians: Egypt's parliament in June voted to ban female genital cutting as part of a law protecting children; and last year, the Egyptian Ministry of Health prohibited licensed medical professionals from performing FGC. These measures are not only laudable, but significant, when one considers that Egypt is the country where FGC is most prevalent.

Reading the article reminded me of a paper I wrote for my "Current Issues in Family Law" class in my third year of law school. My paper was more generally about the reluctance of U.S. asylum law to recognize, and thus grant, asylum on the basis of gender-based persecution. Here's an excerpt from a section entitled "Gender-Based Violence: History and Policy":

"Family violence has historically been perceived as a private matter. Considered as such, it was inappropriate for the state to get involved because of the doctrine of family privacy. Family violence was rarely conceived of as a social problem, or as having roots in women’s subordinated status in society.

The historical reality, however, is that violence against women is a manifestation of historically unequal power relations between men and women. Violence against women in general, and domestic violence in particular, serve as essential components in societies which oppress women, since violence against women not only derives from but also maintains the dominant gender stereotypes and is used to control women in the one area traditionally dominated by women, the home.

Victims of gender-related persecution have been largely unable to overcome the cultural stereotypes and gender inequities that pervade asylum law. Although women and children constitute 80% of the estimated twelve million refugees worldwide, the majority of applicants for asylum in the United States are men."

And from the section of the paper entitled "The History and Reality of Gender-Based Persecution" comes this excerpt, which mentions FGC:

"Perhaps the most pervasive forms of gender persecution are rape and other forms of sexual violence. There are, however, other forms of gender-specific persecution, including cultural and religious traditions inhibiting women’s right to life, liberty and security, such as female genital mutilation, honor killings, dowry deaths, and other traditional practices harmful to women’s and girls’ health. Included in this last category are forced abortion, compulsory sterilization, and forced pregnancy."

The bottom line here is that I support efforts to overcome the mystique surrounding certain entrenched cultural practices by exposing their basis in unequal and discriminatory cultural assumptions, as well as exposing the very real harm -- bodily and psychological -- that they pose to its unwilling victims. And so I support these efforts by the Egyptian government -- and the supporting voices of religious leaders -- to end female genital cutting among all Egyptians, Christians and Muslims alike.