CAIRO — I vividly remember, when I was little, those collective ceremonies that our neighbors from rural areas — from Upper Egypt in particular — used to have for their daughters. They used to hand out sweet rice dishes and the girls used to wear brand new white clothes, as if they were brides. However, I never understood why they would lean against their mothers to be able to walk and why they couldn’t play with the rest of us during ceremonies that were held specifically for them.

This scene, depicting female genital mutilation (FGM) ceremonies, is no longer common in Cairo or in other big Egyptian cities. This is probably due to several reasons, including the fact that many rural families have gotten used to urban civil life and abandoned such traditions known in the countryside. In addition, the Egyptian community’s negative look at FGM also had a role in it, as well as the fact that civil society organizations came together with the Egyptian government to fight this tradition and criminalize it in 2008 under the Egyptian Child Law.

Unfortunately, the absence of FGM ceremonies in Egyptian cities has not been accompanied by the absence of the phenomenon itself. Egypt has the highest rate of FGM in the world, according to the latest UNICEF reports, as 91% of girls in Egypt undergo FGM. However, the law has now compelled families to perform these ceremonies — designed to preserve their daughters' chastity — in secret.

The death of Rasha, 13, one of the victims of "secret FGM" in Egypt in 2013, sparked a new revolution against the phenomenon, as the Egyptian judiciary took action to punish the perpetrators. An Egyptian court issued its first ruling against FGM on Jan. 26, 2015, sentencing the doctor and the father to prison.