The fate of Egyptian women and girls delicately hangs in the balance as the country continues to have one of the worst records in the world for gender equality. With oppression often state-sanctioned,
In response to sustained levels of sexual harassment in Egypt, Egyptian women have necessarily worked together to combat gendered violence, since the Egyptian state remains both silent and complicit, write Reem Abdellatif and Nimco Ali.
Tackling Egypt’s FGM problem means cracking down on doctors who mutilate girls
Female circumcision won’t end until the health professionals who carry out the procedure are held to account
Soheir al Batea died after a surgery for female circumcision in 2013
Credit: Equality No
Soheir al-Batea was 13 when she was killed by Dr Raslan Fadl, a medical doctor in Northern Egypt. When he tried to perform female genital mutilation (FGM) on her, she bled to death.
Fadl claimed he had done nothing wrong and that he was attempting to remove a genital wart at the time. When challenged, he verbally attacked me and other activists including Reda el-Danbouki, a lawyer and Executive Director of the Women’s Center for Guidance and Legal Assistance, referring to us as “dogs rights activists” for highlighting the injustice.