First doctor convicted of FGM death in Egypt only spent three months in jail

First doctor convicted of FGM death in Egypt only spent three months in jail


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Sohair al-Bata’a, who died in 2013. FGM is inflicted on nearly three in four Egyptian girls. Photograph: Women's Center for Guidance and Legal Awareness


The first doctor in Egypt to be convicted of carrying out female genital mutilation (FGM) served just three months of his sentence, despite the case being seen as a landmark in curbing the practice by campaigners and the UN. Sohair al-Bata’a, 13, died at the hands of Raslan Fadl in 2013, although Fadl still denies performing the operation that killed her. Her case prompted outrage among both local and international observers, seen as a rare opportunity for conviction for a practice that is widespread despite being officially banned in Egypt in 2008.

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According to Reda al-Danbouki, a lawyer who represented Sohair during the trial, it took until April this year for Fadl to turn himself in. He did so, the lawyer said, after reconciling with the Bata’a family, which annulled two years of his sentence. Fadl then served three months in prison, until 2 July. “The family are party to the crime, and this shouldn’t have happened,” said Danbouki. In the retrial of January 2015, prosecutors argued that Sohair’s father had forced the 13-year-old to submit to the procedure, which involves the cutting of the genitals and sometimes the entire removal of the clitoris.

“There need to be clearer classification of crimes related to FGM,” explained Dalia Abdel-Hamid of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights in Cairo. “Because then there would be no room for reconciliation.”

Abdel-Hamid explained that had Fadl been convicted of a more serious crime than involuntary manslaughter, he would not have had the option to reconcile with the Bata’a family and later walk free. “There is a lack of political will, meaning no pressure to implement the law – it doesn’t even stop at the stage of failing to arrest those who are already sentenced for practising FGM,” she explained. “The clear fact that there was no single report coming from the state itself shows the state doesn’t fulfil its role to protect the women right to health and life. The state has a responsibility to supervise the clinics – plus public and private hospitals,” said Abdel-Hamid.





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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/02/egyptian-doctor-convicted-of-fgm-death-serves-three-months-in-jail