Egypt: The FGM capital of the world
Summer days: They're what childhood memories are made of, glorious afternoons of unchecked freedom to frolic with friends in the sun, unshackled from the earthly obligations of a math class that never seemed further away.
But
for millions of schoolgirls in Egypt, this time of year represents
something much darker: the start of the female genital mutilation (FGM)
season.
Mona Mohamed was 10 years old
when she underwent what's also known as a female circumcision on a hot
summer day in her village in Upper Egypt.
"I was terrified," she said. "They tied me down, my mother on one hand and my grandmother on the other."
As Mona thrashed around, pinned by her loved ones to the living room floor, a doctor injected her with anesthesia.
Mona
remembers being given a piece of bubble gum to chew on before she
finally passed out. It wasn't until she woke up that she realized she
had been mutilated.
Stories like Mona's are far from rare in
Egypt, where "cutting" has been a brutal rite of passage for young girls
since the time of the pharaohs.
Of the more than 125 million girls
and women alive today who have undergone the procedure, one in four
live in Egypt. That's more than any other country in the world,
according to the U.N.
Ninety-two percent of married Egyptian women aged 15 to 49 have been subjected to FGM, according to a government report released in May. That figure is down from 97% in 2000, but the practice is still the norm here.
Most
girls are cut between the ages of nine and 12, and the operations
usually take place during the summer school break so the girls can
recover at home.
U.N. officials say FGM
has no medical benefits and can cause lifelong physical and emotional
trauma for the women forced to undergo the procedure.
"This
is a gross human rights violation," Jaime Nadal-Roig, the U.N.
Population Fund representative in Cairo, told CNN. "It doesn't add
anything to the life of the girl, and there are no medical or religious
grounds whatsoever."
