Agence France-Presse reports today that Uganda will ban female genital mutilation, which is rampant among pastoralist tribes in the country’s eastern region.
While this is good news and certainly a sign of progress, one wonders how long it will take for a cultural shift to occur against these terrible acts toward women. After all, in Egypt, where genital mutilation is so widespread that an estimated 95 percent of the country’s women have undergone the procedure, the government outlawed genital mutilation in 1997. Yet, the ban has proven hard to enforce as many Egyptian families still view circumcision as necessary to protect girls’ chastity.