Egypt jails doctor for genital mutilation
Print Edition
AN Egyptian appeals court yesterday convicted a doctor of manslaughter and performing female genital mutilation that led to the death of a 13-year-old girl, sentencing him to two years and three months in prison in the country’s first case that came to trial over the widespread practice, defense lawyers said.
The doctor, Raslan Fadl, was initially acquitted of the 2013 death of Sohair el-Batea in a village in the Nile Delta province of Dakahliya. His whereabouts were unknown.
The verdict was “a triumph for women,” said lawyer Reda el-Danbouki, who represented the deceased. Egypt has one of the highest rates of female genital mutilation in the world and criminalized the practice in 2008, but it remains widespread.
The lawyer said the court also fined Fadl US$70 and ordered his clinic closed for a year, and handed el-Batea’s father a three-month suspended sentence for complicity in subjecting his daughter to the procedure.
Rights advocates said the ruling could serve as a deterrent for doctors and families against the practice. The trial was the first in Egypt on charges of breaking the 2008 ban on the practice. The case came to trial only after significant pressure from rights groups.
More than 90 percent of women in Egypt are estimated to have undergone female genital mutilation. The practice generally involves the cutting off of all or part of the clitoris and sometimes the labia. It is performed on both Muslims and Christians and is believed to control a young woman’s sexual appetite.
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