Egyptian father and nurse arrested for female genital mutilation of teenager

Egypt arrested a father and a retired nurse on Tuesday for carrying out female genital mutilation on a 15-year-old girl, after announcing plans to toughen the penalty to 20 years.

Police made the arrests a day after the crime was reported to public prosecution by a doctor in a hospital about 35 kilometres north-east of the capital, Cairo, said Sabry Osman, head of a child helpline that supports children subjected to violence.

“The surgery was done at home and when the girl had severe bleeding, the father took her to a nearby hospital,” Mr Osman, who works for the state-run National Council for Childhood and Motherhood, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“We followed up the case until the girl went out of hospital and returned home. We are now in the process of offering the girl the psychological support that she needs after going through this incident.”

Nearly 90 per cent of Egyptian women and girls aged between 15 and 49 endured FGM, according to a 2016 survey by Unicef, and the ritual is practised widely by Muslims and Christians despite a 2008 ban.

World leaders pledged by 2030 to eradicate FGM, which typically involves the partial or total removal of the external genitalia, and can cause long-lasting mental and physical health problems, including infections and complications during childbirth.

Egypt’s Cabinet last month approved a draft law increasing the maximum sentence for FGM from seven to 20 years, in an attempt to stamp out the ancient practice.

The law was tightened in 2016 to make it a criminal offence to request or carry out the widely condemned practice but women’s rights groups say the ban has not been well enforced.

“When an Egyptian girl died from FGM in a high-profile case in 2013, the police were very slow to arrest anyone,” said Brendan Wynne of the Five Foundation, which campaigns to end FGM globally.

“The fact the police have acted in a day is a hopeful sign that the authorities are now taking this much more seriously.”

In the 2013 case, a doctor was convicted of manslaughter for the 13-year-old girl’s death after prosecutors appealed against the initial verdict. Her father was given a suspended sentence.

Maya Morsi, head of the National Council for Women, called on parliament to quickly approve the bill toughening the law.

"I do not understand the insistence of some families to carry out this crime against their children, which often leads to death," she said.

But Reda Eldanbouki, executive director of the Women’s Centre for Guidance and Legal Awareness, said stiffer penalties would not be enough.

“Awareness campaigns, knocking on doors, sermons in mosques and in churches should be carried out to curb this crime,” she said.