A Rite of Passage -- Or Mutilation?

The images came so rapidly that TV viewers scarcely had time to consider what they were about to witness. After CNN senior correspondent Christiane Amanpour warned that the following footage would be "very hard to watch," the TV camera cut to a home in Egypt's Sayedda Zeinab slum, where 10-year-old Nagla Hamza peered into the lens, her dark eyes excited and anxious. Cut to a crowded living room, where relatives smiled and ululated in celebration. As a voice-over explained that no sanitary precautions would be taken, no anesthetic applied, Nagla was tilted onto her back by two men -- a plumber...

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