Harsher penalties for female circumcision, but to what avail?

Egypt’s Cabinet approved on Sunday an amendment to the law criminalizing female circumcision, increasing the penalty to five to 15 years in prison.

The amendment categorizes the practice as a crime rather than a misdemeanor, with a penalty of five to seven years in prison, and up to 15 years if it leads to death or permanent injury. Anyone accompanying women to be circumcised may also be sentenced to one to three years under the new stipulations.

The changes occurred days before the prosecution of Mayar’s mother, who was implicated in the death of her 17-year-old daughter as she was circumcised last May in a private hospital in the city of Suez. The whereabouts of the doctor performing the surgery are unknown.

Circumcision was first criminalized in Egypt in 2007, through a ministerial decree by former Minister of Health Hatem al-Gibaly. The decree banned the procedure in hospitals and other facilities following the death of a patient from a circumcision operation in the same year.

Months later an article was added to Egypt’s Penal Code, criminalizing circumcision and punishing those performing it with imprisonment of between three months and two years and a fine of LE1,000 to LE5,000

But in the eight years that have passed since this article was introduced, and after several deaths as a result of female circumcision, the judiciary has only penalized two defendants — a doctor and the father of Soheir al-Batea, who died in 2013. An appeals court sentenced the doctor to two years in prison for unintentional murder, but he didn’t serve the sentence. The father, meanwhile, was given a suspended three-month sentence. The appeal followed a misdemeanor court’s initial verdict finding both of them innocent.

Dalia Abdel Hamid, gender officer at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, says aggravating the punishment for female circumcision “is not the solution.”

“The government is generally inclined to aggravate the punishment in crimes related to gender and sexual conduct. This, in my opinion, overlooks the main reasons behind the fact that these crimes have become widespread, which is that people are not convinced they should be criminalized. This is why they are typically not reported,” she says.

“Rather than aggravating the punishment, without any guarantee that the state is able to pursue those who committed the crime, the head of the medical institution where the crime took place should be pursued instead, which gives them an incentive to report about the operations,” she adds.

Abdel Hamid would also rather see the parents being spared from punishment if they report the crime, which gives them an incentive to report a doctor if the patient is harmed. “This would at least guarantee some reporting of cases of circumcision that lead to permanent damage or death.”

A population health survey issued in 2015 showed that nine out of every 10 women aged 15-49 have been circumcised in Egypt. This figure is lower among older women, according to the survey, which adds that, despite speculation about a decrease in female circumcision, half of women aged one to 14 years old are expected to be circumcised in the future. The survey also shows a higher rate of approval for the practice among men than women.

The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights demanded in July the removal of reference to Article 61 of the Penal Code from the law criminalizing female circumcision. The article immunized offenders from punishment in cases where circumcision was conducted for self protection. EIPR said this undermined the law by suggesting there are cases in which doctors have to opt for full circumcision in order to save a patient from a major threat.

The United Nations Population Fund affirmed that there is no medical reason that would require a circumcision procedure.

EIPR considers Egypt to be facing a major challenge in convincing doctors to stop performing female circumcision, especially given the reference to Article 61, which offers them protection.

Abdel Hamid says the Doctors Syndicate has not performed its role in confronting members who perform female circumcision. But Ihab Taher, general secretary of the syndicate, says it made its position public, and repeatedly warned doctors about performing female circumcision. Reported cases were referred to the ethical committee of the Syndicate, he says, with the possible involvement of a disciplinary court and expulsion from the profession’s list of medics.

“It Is true that a large sector of doctors are still convinced that [female] circumcision is one of the principles of Islam,” but he notes “there is a certain connection between the low wages of doctors and their accepting to perform circumcisions.”