link:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/04A6BE36-A265-475A-B8D1-C8E0A4298A69.htm
Egypt has banned all female circumcision, the widely-practised removal
of the clitoris which just days ago cost the life of a 12-year-old
girl in the country.
Hatem al-Gabali, the health minister, decided on Thursday to ban every
doctor and member of the medical profession, in public or private
establishments, from carrying out a clitoridectomy.
Any circumcision "will be viewed as a violation of the law and all
contraventions will be punished," a ministry official said.
A survey in 2000 said the practice was carried out on 97 per cent of
the country's women.
'Loophole' closed
The health ministry's step cancelled a 1996 provision to the law which
had permitted circumcision "in situations of illness" should doctors
advise it.
The measure to outlaw the practice entirely came after a girl died
while undergoing the procedure at a private medical clinic last week.
Budour Ahmed Shaker died in the southern province of Minya, south of
Cairo, after she was given a heavy dose of anaesthetic, security
sources said.
She had been taken to the clinic by her mother but died before she
could be transferred to a hospital.
The practice, which affects both Muslim and Christian women in Egypt,
is believed to have begun in the time of the pharoahs.
