I visited Egypt with friends, including a high-risk pregnancy ob/gyn who lectured at a couple of Cairo hospitals, so our schedule included several receptions with Egypt’s medical elite. At one of these do’s, an Egyptian doctor who spoke excellent English matter-of-factly let it drop that in Egypt, the female circumcision rate is NINE. TY. EIGHT. percent.
The bulk of his practice was devoted to dealing with incontinence, infertility, infections, and other horrible after-effects of this ritual maiming. In response to my jaw on the floor, he sheepishly added that they don’t normally let the ninety-eight-percent stat cat out of the bag in front of Americans; they know we “don’t like it.”
After Israel, Egypt gets the most American aid money. The Egyptian government could and would stop this barbaric practice in a heartbeat if we made it a condition of writing next year’s check. Why don’t we?
FGM prevalence rates of 97 percent in Egypt, 94.5 percent in Eritrea, 93.7 percent in Mali , 89.2 percent in Sudan , and
http://www.path.org/files/FGM-The-Facts.htm