[Debate] Female genital mutilation becomes less common in Egypt

[Riaz K Tayob]

I remember working with Sudanese surgeons on this issue with the World 
Health Organisation. This necessary task was needlessly made much harder 
because WHO insisted on getting Westerners in the "frontlines" to fight 
this practice. Speaking to the non-Western staff they said the presence 
of Westerners made the task more difficult because some of the tribes 
people would say "the baby killers" (pro-abortion) are here to give us 
advice...

and also stereotypes that this was in some quarters a demand from males 
in communities when some research indicated it was in many instances 
intergenerationally transmitted through females who had the procedure...

and of course this was the "barbarian" muslims doing this while other 
religious orders doing this same thing were not focused on... nothing 
like a nice dose of prejudice to serve up a nice cause de celebre...

On 2011/08/18 08:39 PM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> <http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20808-female-genital-mutilation-becomes-less-common-in-egypt.html>
> Female genital mutilation becomes less common in Egypt
>
> 17:22 18 August 2011 by Wendy Zukerman
>
> After a decade of failed attempts to stop female genital mutilation
> (FGM) – or female circumcision – in Egypt, the practice is finally
> becoming less common.
>