Cairo, Egypt – Maryam, 28, an Egyptian master’s student of anthropology, recalls with great vividness the day she underwent circumcision.
She was 11 years old and her mother and aunt brought a “da’ya”, or traditional midwife, to their home in a working-class district in the coastal city of Alexandria. The woman told her to lie down on her bed and then spread her legs and daubed an anaesthetic cream inside her, then reached for a razor blade she had cauterised with a flame.
