According to the U.N. Children’s Fund: more than 90 percent of married Egyptian women were subjected to some form of “circumcision” at some point in the past. Brings to mind the story, possibly apocryphal, of the British colonial official in India who, when told that in Hindu culture it was customary to cremate a widow on her husband’s funeral pyre, remarked that in British culture it was customary to hang chaps who did that sort of thing.
Although hanging is not the prescribed penalty, the Egyptian government did finally ban the practice about a year ago.