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CAIRO, Egypt-The death of a 12-year-old Egyptian girl at the hands of a doctor performing female circumcision in the country's south has sparked a public outcry and prompted health and religious authorities this week to ban the practice.The girl, Badour Shaker, died earlier in June while being circumcised in an illegal clinic in the southern town of Maghagh. Her mother, Zeniab Abdel Ghani, told the Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper that she had paid $9 dollars to a female physician to perform the procedure.The mother also told the paper that the doctor later tried to bribe her to withdraw a lawsuit accusing the physician of murder, in return for $3,000, but she refused.A forensic investigation into the case showed the girl's death was caused by an anesthesia overdose during the procedure.The case sparked widespread condemnation and was closely followed in Egyptian papers, which also reported that Shaker had passed out sweets to pupils in her class earlier on the day of her death, to celebrate her good grades.On Thursday, the Egyptian Health Ministry issued a decree on female circumcision, stating that it is "prohibited for any doctors, nurses, or any other person to carry out any cut of, flattening or modification of any natural part of the female reproductive system, either in government hospitals, non government or any other places."It warned that violators of the ban would be punished, but did not specify the penalty. The ban is not as enforceable as a law, which requires passage in the national legislature.A 2003 survey by the United Nation's children's agency, UNICEF, said that 97 percent of married women in Egypt have undergone genital mutilation.But the Egyptian government considers the 97 percent inaccurate. A recent study among schoolgirls by Egypt's Ministry of Health and Population found that 50.3 percent of girls between the age of 10-18 years have been circumcised.There are signs that Shaker death could move the parliament to pass a new bill banning female circumcision, especially after Egypt's First Lady Suzanne Mubarak asked a Cairo conference on violence against children to mark a moment of silence in Shaker's memory, just days after the girl's death.Shaker was a victim of "the most vicious practice committed against women," Mubarak said at the time. "Badour's death is the beginning of the end for female circumcision in Egypt."...To read more go to:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,287393,00.html
PS:Do you realize how many barbaric practices are out there against women?FGM is just one of them...what about stoning,honour killing,or just simply murder if it fits in the hands of male family members?What about a woman's own child dousing her with gas and litting the match?We are really in the days of Noah....!
As in the days of Noah...
