He doesn't seem to care that a 13 year-old girl just died after being butchered. Another 13-year-old, Nermine El-Haddad, lost her life in 2010 because her ignorant parents forced her to undergo the painful torture of FGM. And because they knew what they had done was illegal they buried the child so as not to get caught.
El-Haddad, from the village of Abu Nashaba in Menoufiya, was a pupil at Al-Khatatba preparatory school. She died after severe haemorrhaging following an operation at Menouf Public Hospital last week conducted by Dr Fatheya Mahmoud Eweida. Fearing legal action against them, her parents did not report the incident to the police. Eweida allowed the burial of El-Haddad without a death certificate or an official burial licence, and the incident only came to attention when one of Eweida's colleagues at the hospital phoned the ministry's child rescue hotline (16000).
In spite of the 2007 ban, which bans doctors from performing FGM in hospitals and a law enacted in 2008 (childhood law number 126) which makes it a crime, the practice continues, especially in the south of Egypt. Egypt is sponsoring programmes to help educate the people, but some traditions, tragically, die hard. In the meantime, young girls are being mutilated and in some cases dying because of ignorance, and misogynistic clerics like al-Badri who encourage the practice.
It is believed that 75% of Egyptian women, both Muslim and Christian, have been circumcised.
Al-Badri believes that female circumcision is ordered by Allah. It's a way to control a woman's need for a man. When the reporter asks him about a man's needs- al-Badri responds that those are controlled by marriage. So a woman gets mutilated to control her needs, while a man gets to marry.
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