Violence against women.

• Author: Nelson, Toni

It may be the biggest human rights issue in the world - and it is certainly one of the least discussed. Yet increasingly, women are finding ways to fight the mutilation, rape, beating, and murder that have been their lot.

A GIRL IS MUTILATED IN EGYPT

It is not a ritual that many people would expect much less want - to witness. Yet in the fall of 1994, the television network CNN brought the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) into living rooms around the world, by broadcasting the amputation of a young Egyptian girl's clitoris. Coinciding with the United Nations International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, the broadcast was one of several recent events that have galvanized efforts to combat the various forms of violence that threaten women and girls throughout the world. The experience suffered by 10-year-old Nagla Hamza focused international attention on the plight of the more than 100 million women and girls in Africa victimized by FGM. In doing so, it helped spur conference delegates into formulating an official "Programme of Action" that condemned FGM and outlined measures to eliminate the practice.

Euphemistically referred to as female circumcision, FGM encompasses a variety of practices ranging from excision, the partial or total removal of the clitoris and labia minora, to infibulation, in which all the external genitals are cut away and the area is restitched, leaving only a small opening for the passage of urine and menstrual blood. Nagla's mutilation, performed by a local barber without anesthesia or sanitary precautions, was typical. Although the physical and psychological consequences of FGM are severe and often life-threatening, the practice persists due to beliefs that emerged from ancient tribal customs but which have now come to be associated with certain major religions. In Israel, for instance, FGM is practiced by Jewish migrants from the Ethiopian Falasha community; elsewhere in Africa, it is found among Christian and Islamic populations. But FGM has no inherent association with any of these religions. Although some Islamic scholars consider it an important part of that religion, FGM actually predates Islam, and neither the Qur'an, the primary source for Islamic law, nor the Hadith, collections of the Prophet Mohammed's lessons, explicitly require the practice.

Justifications for FGM vary among the societies where it occurs (FGM is practiced in 28 African nations, as well as in scattered tribal communities in the Arabian Peninsula and various parts of South Asia). But most explanations relate in some way to male interest in controlling women's emotions and sexual behavior. One of the most common explanations is the need to lessen desire so women will preserve their virginity until marriage. The late Gad-Alhaq All Gad-Alhaq, Sheik of Cairo's al-Azhar Islamic University at the time of the CNN broadcast, explained it this way: the purpose of FGM is "to moderate sexual desire while saving womanly pleasures in order that women may enjoy their husbands." For Mimi Ramsey, an anti-FGM activist in the United States who was mutilated in her native Ethiopia at age six, FGM is meant to reinforce the power men have over women: "the reason for my mutilation is for a man to be able to control me, to make me a good wife." Today, migrants are bringing FGM out of its traditional societies and into Europe, North America, and Australia. Approximately 2 million girls are at risk each year.

As in other countries where the practice is commonplace, Egypt's official policy on FGM has been ambiguous. Although a Ministry of Health decree in 1959 prohibited health professionals and public hospitals from performing the procedure, and national law makes it a crime to permanently mutilate anyone, clitoridectomies and other forms of FGM are not explicitly prohibited. An estimated 80 percent of Egyptian women and girls, or more than 18 million people, have undergone some form of FGM, which is often carried out by barbers in street booths on the main squares of both small towns and large cities.

Before the CNN broadcast, Egyptian public opinion seemed to be turning against the practice. In early 1994, activists founded the Egyptian Task Force Against Female Genital Mutilation. Later that year, during the population conference, Population and Family Welfare Minister Maher Mahran vowed to delegates that "Egypt is going to work on the elimination of female genital mutilation." Plans were even laid for legislation that would outlaw FGM. But some members of Egypt's religious community saw the broadcast as a form of Western imperialism and used it to challenge both the secular government of Hosni Mubarak and the conference itself.

In October 1994, Sheik Gad-Alhaq ruled that FGM is a religious obligation for Muslims. The same month, Minister of Health Dr. Ali Abdel Fattah issued a decree permitting the practice in selected government hospitals. The Minister's directive came just 10 days after a committee of experts convened by him condemned FGM and denied that it had any religious justification. Fattah affirmed his personal opposition, but insisted that the decree was necessary to "save those...