Racial bias fuels outrage against Sudanese doctor accused of female circumcision, legal advocates say

Last week, a social media user published a series of posts accusing a doctor of performing female circumcision, a practice that was criminalized in Egypt in 2008.

Shortly after, reactions to the alleged incident played out in the House of Representatives and the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood (NCCM), all the way up to the Health Ministry, which submitted a report to the Public Prosecution regarding the alleged crime.

The backlash marks the first time officials have spoken of female circumcision in years, following the toughening of criminal penalties for offenders in 2016 and 2021. But this time, official attention focused less on the alleged incident itself and was more preoccupied with the doctor’s nationality.

The doctor was, as the NCCM put it, “a foreigner,” or as some MPs phrased it during the House session on the incident, “a member of the Sudanese community.” 

This comes as discriminatory sentiment toward the Sudanese community and other nationalities surges in Egypt. Women’s legal advocates and rights researchers tell Mada Masr that the way officials responded to the case demonstrated a clear racial inflection, revealing inconsistencies in the social response to the issue of female circumcision.

It all started when a social media user published a post alleging that the doctor was advertising house calls to perform “circumcision on children.”

After posting screenshots of a conversation she claimed to have had with the doctor, including his phone number and purporting to enquire about circumcision for her five-year-old daughter, she proceeded to say that she had confirmed her own accusations. She called on the Health Ministry and the Public Prosecution to “arrest and deport this man.”

The accused doctor, Al-Sadeg Ismail Magzoub, denied the allegations in comments to privately owned news outlet Al-Masry Al-Youm, claiming that he only performs circumcisions on males and that the advertisement he posted on social media was not meant to offer female circumcision. “There is a harassment campaign against me, and I will not respond to it. I will continue to practice my work in silence,” he added.

Speaking to Mada Masr, rights researcher Nana Abuelsoud points out that social media accusations are an inept approach to reporting on suspected cases of female circumcision.

“If someone wants to notify authorities that a family has undertaken circumcision, publishing a screenshot of [their phone] number exposes people to double the risk outside of the legal framework for addressing circumcision,” she explains.

Commenting on the allegations in the posts, Nada Nashaat, a lawyer at the Center for Egyptian Women's Legal Assistance, which deals with cases of female circumcision, also notes that the accusations should be treated carefully due to the social media user’s anti-immigrant sentiment.

“The person who wrote [the post] is someone whose orientation is known to be against Sudanese refugees, or against non-Egyptians in Egypt altogether, and this was the first question mark, in my opinion,” she says.

According to Nashaat, if doctors are suspected of performing female circumcision operations, authorities such as the NCCM and its affiliated child helpline should be informed first. She says that the NCMM is an entity that specializes in dealing with this complex issue, and it would have been the most effective respondent in taking the necessary steps and ultimately deciding whether to report the incident to the Public Prosecution.

The NCCM did ultimately respond to the case, which was first reported on social media, announcing that the incident was reported through its child helpline and the council’s social media channels. It said it had notified the concerned entities, including the Public Prosecution, the Giza governor and the Health Ministry.

“We will not hesitate to prosecute and punish those involved in these crimes, whether through action, incitement, or demand,” said the head of the NCCM, Sahar al-Sombaty, adding that female circumcision is a prosecutable offense irrespective of the suspect’s nationality.

Doctors Syndicate Assistant Secretary General Khaled Amin explains to Mada Masr that if a registered Egyptian doctor is found to have performed female circumcision on minors, they would be investigated and referred to prosecution. 

“We have four types of penalties in the syndicate’s bylaws in relation to circumcision practices: warning, attribution of blame, suspension, or expungement for the expelled from the registers of practitioners, according to each case and its circumstances, that is, if the charge is confirmed against him by the prosecution or the judicial process,” Amin says.

But many doctors in Egypt who perform female circumcisions, as well as the doctor accused in this case, Amin says, are unlicensed. Eighty-six percent of girls and women aged 15 to 49 in Egypt have undergone circumcision, and only 74 percent of those operations were performed by doctors, according to the latest data on family health in 2021 from the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAMPAS).

“This doctor is not registered in the syndicate and does not have a license to practice medicine. We therefore have no jurisdiction,” says Amin. He notes, however, that the syndicate submitted complaints regarding the incident to relevant authorities to follow up on the case.

But aside from the reports to competent authorities, news of the alleged incident also reached the House. After briefing requests were submitted by MPs Irene Saad and Mervat Abdel Azeem, lawmakers discussed the incident in the House Health Committee session last Tuesday, launching an attack on the doctor as well as the whole Sudanese community in Egypt.

Other MPs took the opportunity during the session to warn of “foreigners’ beliefs” that do not fit with Egyptian culture, they said, stressing that “guests” in Egypt should respect the country’s laws, especially given the “long strides” the government has made in fighting female circumcision. Saad stressed that the “foreign practice” should be confronted by the National Council for Women and the interior and health ministries. The undersecretary of the House Health Committee, Mohamed al-Wahsh, said that though foreign nationals have become part of the social fabric, the country’s laws should be respected and applied to them as well. He called on the Egyptian public to preserve the law and for the social and behavioral paradigm not to be altered “because of the foreigners.”

Health Ministry Spokesperson Hossam Abdel Ghaffar, who also attended the session, said that the ministry had submitted a report to the Public Prosecution to investigate “foreign nationals advertising circumcision operations.”

Nashaat describes the fact that the matter was addressed in a parliamentary session as “shameful,” noting that given the legal framework in place, the appropriate course of action should have been legal rather than involving political authorities.

“If someone, regardless of their national origin, commits an act that amounts to a crime in Egypt's laws on Egyptian soil, authorities should take the legal action outlined in the law of the land,” Nashaat explains.

“If it is proved that someone committed a crime, we will not defend [them against] prosecution. Whatever your nationality is, you will be punished according to the country’s law,” Nashaat says. “But for Parliament to discuss this topic, it means the message is clear — they want to prohibit the presence of Sudanese people, ban the presence of Eritrians, ban the presence of anyone from countries where [female] circumcision is performed.”

Abuelsoud likewise notes that the race of the foreign doctor loomed large in the proceedings taken since the allegations were published online. “The whole incident is tainted with racism, and we should not turn a blind eye to interpreting it as part of the larger anti-immigrant and anti-refugee context in Egypt,” she says.

Nashaat also points out inconsistencies in the application of national regulations on female circumcision. She notes that in numerous cases over the past decade, doctors who performed female circumcisions were found to be still practicing medicine, such as the doctor who performed the illegal operation on 13-year-old Sohair al-Batea, leading to her death in 2014.

Batea’s doctor administered a fatal dosage of anesthesia while performing the operation in a private clinic. He was the first doctor to stand trial since the procedure was criminalized, along with her father, though both were acquitted a few months later.

“That is why I say that [legal proceedings] should be applied to everyone for circumcision to be held accountable in a real and effective way, so that we can put an end to it,” says Nashaat.

Abuelsoud had also previously told Mada Masr that the harsh legal penalties introduced in 2021 against families who subject their children to female circumcision could have the opposite effect and lead to impunity due to the fear of reporting one's family to the authorities. She added that, while the law criminalizes female circumcision, it has rarely been successful in convicting doctors because judges are often lenient with them, giving them suspended sentences out of concern for their future.

Like Egypt, Sudan has also prohibited female circumcision. Initiatives have been launched by the African Union and local civil society organizations to combat the practice, and in July of 2020, the Sudanese government criminalized the practice, making it punishable by three years in prison.

“When it comes to Sudan, Eritrea and Somalia, not all people in Egyptian society know of the efforts taking place in these countries, such as feminist organizations operating while being watched by Sudanese security forces. You must be working in the field or interested in the topic to know of the Sundanese efforts to combat the practice,” Nashaat explains.

According to a 2023 United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) report, the prevalence of female circumcision in Sudan has declined. Among those aged 15-49 years, the rate dropped from 89 percent in 2010 to 87 percent at the time of the report's publication. For those aged 0-14 years, the rate went from 37 to 32 percent between 2010 and 2014, the report found.