Farida Ahmed

In mid-2005, four-year-old Inaam Abdel-Wahab was killed in a naval hospital in northern Khartoum as a result of heavy bleeding due to circumcision, which sparked widespread reactions and demanded the criminalization of circumcision.

After 15 years, the Sudanese Transitional Government banned, a few days ago, what it called the practice of female genital mutilation, in a move praised by local and international human rights organizations, and considered it a great victory for women's rights advocates in a country where this dangerous practice is widespread.

While 200 million girls and women alive had previously undergone FGM in 31 countries, according to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), and 68 million girls were still at risk by 2030, 88% of girls and women in Sudan, who ranged from Between the ages of 15 and 49, some form of female circumcision, according to UN estimates.

In a long-awaited historic step, Sudan endorses a law criminalizing female circumcision with a three-year prison sentence. More work is required to ensure that this law is implemented in practice. pic.twitter.com/5efHt2RlQL

Amnesty International (@AmnestyAR) May 1, 2020

Imprisonment and fine
As of the time of the promulgation of the law, anyone in Sudan involved in the process of female genital mutilation will face a possible three-year prison sentence and a fine under the amendment of Article 141 of the Sudanese Criminal Code which was approved by the country's transitional government last week, which reached Authority last year after the overthrow of the Omar al-Bashir regime.

Although UNICEF commended the move, the international organization stressed that abandoning this practice is not only a matter of legal reform, but also requires more efforts to raise awareness among different groups, including midwives, health service providers, parents and youth.

The law alone is not enough
in Egypt, the neighboring country of Sudan, female circumcision was banned in 2008, and the law was amended in 2016 to criminalize doctors and parents who commit this practice, with prison terms of up to seven years for those who circumcised the female without medical justification, and the punishment was increased Imprisonment, if it leads to permanent disability, or if the act leads to death.

Despite this, female circumcision continues until now, which made Egypt occupy the fourth place globally and the third at the level of Arab countries in the spread of this practice, according to Egyptian newspapers.

Prosecutions are very rare, and even occur when the victim "child" dies, which happened recently in February, when 12-year-old Egyptian girl Nada died while undergoing circumcision by a doctor in the village of Al-Hawatkeh in Assiut Governorate.

The World Health Organization describes female circumcision as "female genital mutilation," and defines it as covering all practices that involve partial or total removal of the external genitalia, or other injuries to these organs with non-treatment causes.

🍃🌸Sudan Makes female from Genital Cutting of a Crime with
In 'New Nera' For Women's Rights
in Sudan became the female genital crime cut
in a "new era" for women 's rights to

criminalize female genital mutilation and Alakomh of the perpetrator in three years ' imprisonment and a fine :)

Congratulations For All Human Rights campaigners around pic.twitter.com/r6TFLW7f2c

Safaa Al Mansoori (@ SafaAlmansory3) May 1, 2020

A history of resistance has
practiced FGM throughout Sudan, dozens of victims have fallen, and local and international organizations have not stopped trying to change people's awareness and change that habit, and positions have already changed, with four states (South Kordofan, Gedaref, South Darfur, and the Red Sea) out of Eighteen states in Sudan have domestic laws to criminalize or prohibit female genital mutilation starting in 2008, but implementation of the measures has had limited success and has not resulted in any prosecutions, according to 28toomany.

In the same year, in conjunction with those laws launched by the four states, UNICEF launched a "Salima" campaign, calling on Sudanese society to change misconceptions and protect girls from genital mutilation.

And "Salima" means the girl, who is full of health and body and mind, without being harmed, and without affecting the image that God Almighty created for her, and the initiative - which uses the media to spread its message as widely as possible - was accepted by a number of members of society Welcome by the state at the time, but some hardline leaders resisted it.

This resistance led to the suspension of the approval of a legal amendment in 2016 to criminalize female genital mutilation, and he remained locked in the drawers pending approval by Parliament, until the transitional government finally approved it.