Voting in the Egyptian presidential election is underway and what better way to win over votes of the poor than through offering badly needed low cost services and free goods. The Muslim Brotherhood, who have a track record in community outreach through services and goods, have added a new service for Egyptians: circumcising girls for a nominal fee.
The practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) or female circumcision as it is popularly called, involves the removal of the clitoris and part of the labia minora under the pretext that this will protect a girl’s chastity. FGM, although practiced for thousands of years, has been on the decline in the past decade thanks to a socially sensitive and nationwide campaign to show that FGM is neither religiously prescribed, nor linked to a woman’s moral behaviour. Thanks to the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis, the progress made in eliciting positive social change on curbing the practice now risks being reversed.
In the village of Abou Aziz, Minya, a young person phoned the child rights hotline to report that female circumcision was going to be offered by the passing mobile health clinic. The governor of Minya investigated the matter and warned that since the child rights law criminalizes the practice of FGM, legal action would be taken against the Freedom and Justice party if their health clinic undertook such illegal activity. The Muslim Brotherhood’s response was to deny that their mobile health clinic had ever offered such a service and to claim that the Brothers are being vilified by a hostile press who are spreading rumours that have no basis in reality.
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