DESPITE PROGRESS ELSEWHERE, EGYPT’S FGM NUMBERS STILL HIGH

A new study by the Cairo-based Tadwein Center for Gender Studies has found that that 86% of underprivileged women aged 18 to 35 in Egypt, a country of more than 102 million people, have been subject to female genital mutilation (FGM), or female genital cutting (FGC). Only down one percentage point from the FGM figures in Egypt's last National Health Survey, in 2014. "I was in shock when I saw how little has changed, given that Egypt vowed to end FGM by 2030," Habiba Abdelaal, fellow of the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy and a researcher of sexual and gender-based violence in Egypt, told DW.