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“Bedour, did you have to die for some light to shine in the dark minds? Did you have to pay with your dear life a price … for doctors and clerics to learn that the right religion doesn’t cut children’s organs.”  Nawal El-Saadawi

Lives saved by death!

Women’s rights are essential to reach comprehensive human rights: Slogans raised decades ago.

Last year was marked by numerous violations against women, whether as a child or as an adult.

In late June of 2007, 12-year-old Bedour Ahmed Shaker was led by her mother that she trusts, to a private clinic in Maghagha, a town in Upper Egypt. Confident that her mother will never “dare” to hurt her, Bedour was taken to be circumcised. She died before being transferred to a hospital.

Bedour is not the only reported case this year. In Gharbiya, on August 10th, 2007, Karima Rahim Massoud, 13-year-old Egyptian girl died during a circumcision operation by an overdose of anesthesia. While, 11-year-old Shaimaa Ramadan Saad escaped death after hemorrhaging for nearly 13 hours after being subject to a clitoridectomy.

Female genital mutilation, practiced in Egypt by both Christians and Muslims, is called clitoridectomy. It usually involves the removal of the clitoris and labia. It is thought that it tames a girl’s sexual desire, and preserves the girl’s chastity and the family honor.

After media blasting, specifically on Bedour’s incident, Egyptian Health Ministry issued a decree stating that it is “prohibited for any doctor, nurse, or any other person to carry out any cut of, flattening or modification of any natural part of the female reproductive system, either in government hospitals, non-government hospitals or elsewhere”.

This declaration is announced in all media channels, press, TV and Radio, and continues until now.

Mubarak signs child law amendments, but…

Last week, the Egyptian President Mubarak has signed the final version of the Child Law amendments before being debated in the People Assembly and the Shura Council.

The draft law aims at amending the provisions of law of 30 articles and the second clause of article 134.

Two amended laws sparked controversy among a number of parliamentarians and the Muslim Brotherhood lawmakers, they have strongly objected to raise the age of marriage to 18 years old and the criminalization of female genital mutilation, because they believe that it violates Islamic law.

The article also provides that would-be married couple should undergo medical examination to make sure that they are clear of any disease that may affect their health.

Council Secretary-General Moushira Khattab said that the proposed amendments to the law fully comply with the Sharia and with Islam and Christianity. They were approved by Al-Azhar, and the church already applies medical examination for marriages.

Women’s right to knowledge

Thousands of children live in the street, they are subject to daily hazards and death due to different reasons.

Although, tens of NGOs work in the field of street children, numbers still increase enormously every year.

Some of street women are sheltered in pilot centers, others are still living in the street. Egyptian NGOs refuse to disseminate contraception knowledge and to raise street women awareness of hazards facing them by getting pregnant at young age (sometimes starting 13 years old). They claim that informing street women or girls on contraceptives, encourages them to have free sex, which is unacceptable and jeopardizes what our Muslim community believes in.

The problem persists, street children increase and new babies come to the world by their child mothers.

Girls, stay home in Eid!

“Public sexual harassment against women has become a pervasive problem in Egypt and presents a significant obstacle both to women’s well-being and their participation in public life, which in turn impacts the course of democratic progress in Egypt. We define sexual harassment as any uninvited behavior that is sexual in nature and makes women feel uncomfortable or unsafe”. (Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights)

Egyptian blogger, Wael Abbas, publicized, on You Tube, an incident occurred in Cairo Down Town last Eid, in December.  The situation showed a large number of men whistling, running in a big group, and girl in her early 20s falling on the ground. Men gathered around her and started to touch her and tear her clothes off. When the girl ran and tried to resort to a shop, men surrounded it and didn’t want to leave until they saw another girl coming, they repeated the same scene until a taxi driver came and rescued the girl. The crowded men didn’t want the vehicle to move forming a circle around the car.

After a while, two girls wearing the Gulf Arab cloak were approaching, and boys in the street tried to hug them and to take off their scarves. They also tried to take off their robes. Shop keepers intervened and splashed water on the boys and pulled the girls into the safety of their shops.

Egyptian women, usually, are subject to sexual harassment, whether in streets or in transportation means, hence, there is a specific vehicle for women in each metro.  What was really interesting in such incident is the number of men aroused by seeing “veiled” girls and the non-interference of others, especially police, to solve the situation.  The public was watching and encouraging as if they were watching a movie, just few interfered to save the preys.

What next, a woman Imam?

On the other side, women, in Egypt, reached some of their taken rights since ever.

In February, 33-years-old Amal Sulaiman became the first Egyptian female Maazoun (Muslim marriage registrar). She was appointed and approved by an Egyptian court in Zaqaziq, some 60km north of Cairo. Amal has applied to the court to operate as Maazoun, a job that has been only confined to men in a predominantly Muslim country.

Among violated rights, death, deprivation and aggression against women, one must keep their fingers crossed. Brave women and men work on giving back rights to those who were subject to injustice. For the first time, I really feel, that government works, hand in hand, with the civil society to develop women situation, whether by the ratification of child rights amendments or the issuance of the new law against circumcision.

Egypt keep it up!