CAIRO: Under the new child law, which the Shoura Council passed last week, performing female circumcision is punishable by three months to two years in prison and a fine of LE 1,000 to LE 5,000.
In addition, the law raises the legal age of marriage to 18 for both men and women. It also makes it possible to register newborns under the mother’s name in case the father is unknown.
The law also introduces the Child Protection Committee, to be headed by respective governorates. The committee would be responsible for receiving complaints about child abuse and has the power to call the child and the parents or guardians in for questioning. It can also punish abuses, as it sees fit, with a prison sentence or a fine.
The law, which is up for discussion in parliament, has faced criticism and opposition mainly from conservative and religious groups who see parts of it as being in contradistinction to Islamic teachings.
Parliament is yet to decide whether to pass the law or not and it is expected to stir a heated debate, especially given the 20 percent of Muslim Brotherhood MPs. Some of them had already rejected parts of this law, citing contradictions with Islam.
The law is also criticized for criminalizing a number of practices that are quite common in Egyptian society.
Nagy El Shahabi, head of the El Geil Party, said that female circumcision is a deeply-rooted tradition in Egypt’s villages. “People shouldn’t be punished for practicing their customs and traditions, he said.
“If we apply the prison sentence, all people in Upper Egypt will end up in prison.
In response, Council Speaker Safwat El Sherif said that if the society wants to develop it has to change its habits.
Osama Hafez, one of the Muslim Brotherhood’s leaders, said that outlawing female circumcision and punishing parents for beating their children are “ideas imported from the West that would lead to dysfunctional families.
However, the main religious institutions, namely Al Azhar and the Islamic Research Center, have supported the law, albeit with reservations.
The Islamic Research Center backed efforts to penalize Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) practices after its negative effects were proven.
Since there is no religious script that mandates female circumcision, Islamic Research Center member Abdel Moaty Bayoumi explained, and the negative effects have been proven, then it should be subjected to the Islamic ruling that everything that inflicts harm is haram, or religiously prohibited.
Speaking to Daily News Egypt, Mona Amin, the head of the national project to combat FGM, stressed that outlawing the practice was approved by Al Azhar and the main Islamic scholars including Yusuf El Qaradawi and Mohamed Selim El Awa.
She said that over the past few years, people have become more aware of the dangers of FGM, which is why society is ready to accept this law.
Acknowledging that some habits are hard to beat with mere advice,Bayoumi said that it would take a long time to eradicate the practice of FGM. The more suitable the punishment is to the crime, he added, the more effective the law will be in achieving its goal.
Ismail El Deftar, a member of the Shoura Council and a professor of Hadith at Al Azhar University, refuted claims that the law contradicts with Islamic teachings. He said that shariah calls upon parents to raise their children wisely without inflicting harm or beating them.
Bayoumi agrees. He says that beating hurts children physically and emotionally. The Prophet Mohamed, he added, called for a kind of reprimand that does not inflict harm or cause psychological damage.
In agreement, Refaat El Saied said that some would say they will beat their children in spite of the law. “I tell them ‘beat them so they would become retarded as you.’
El Deftar also defended allowing children to take their mother’s last name, saying that some of the Prophet’s companions were named after their mothers – El Zubair Bin Safia, for example.
The main point of disagreement that Islamic scholars note is the marriage age. They say shariah encourages early marriages. Early marriages are also common in rural areas, and raising the marriage age could lead villagers to resort to urfi marriages (common-law marriages without a contract), with all its negative repercussions.
