Summer is coming up. Take a moment and think what comes to your mind when I say the word "summer."

The beach? Yes, definitely. A summer job? Possibly. Family reunions? You can't even escape them. A new TV show? Most probably.

If one or all of the things above came to your mind, then you are blessed. You're blessed because summer isn't the same to everyone else. To some girls, it's known as "the cutting season," as terrifying as it sounds.

It's a time of year many young girls in the UK, Africa and the Middle East, where FGM is most prevalent, dread. Summer in Egypt is the season of FGM. Yes, I mean Female Genital Mutilation (It's very common in the UK too, in case you thought ignorance is restricted to the third world only).

Ninety-one percent of Egyptian women have undergone circumcision between the ages of 5 and 14. This brutal process usually takes place in the summer when young girls are out of school, giving them more time to heal before the next school session

This article is talking specifically about FGM in Egypt because Egypt is ranked second worldwide in performing FGM. Another reason is that Egypt is considered one of the most civilized, if not the most civilized, countries in Africa, so you can imagine worse in other countries.

If you're not familiar with FGM (which you probably aren't), here are some facts you should probably know.

According to the World Health Organization website (WHO), in 1995, WHO developed four broad categories for FGM operations.

Type 1

Type 2

Type 3 (infibulation)

Type 4 (unclassified)

• Pricking, piercing, stretching or incision of the clitoris and/or labia
• Cauterization by burning the clitoris and surrounding tissues
• Incisions to the vaginal wall
• Scraping (angurya cuts) or cutting (gishiri cuts) of the vagina and surrounding tissues
• Introduction of corrosive substances or herbs into the vagina.

Type 1 and Type 2 operations account for 85 percent of all FGM. Type 3 (infibulation) is common in Djibouti, Somalia and Sudan and in parts of Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal. The practice is usually carried out by a "cutter" midwife in villages using a razor blade, but in some countries such as Egypt and Indonesia it is carried out in clinics and hospitals.

What I grew up knowing as FGM is Type 3 since this is the most common in Egypt. By now you may be wondering why?

What makes people torture their daughters in this brutal and inhumane way? Why would any parents in the world cause all this psychological and physical harm to their baby girls?

Here are the reasons why FGM is still a social norm in Egypt and other African countries. Not just a social norm, but highly favorable too.

In Egypt, people perform FGM on their daughters to "preserve" the family "honor." Excision of the clitoris is believed to reduce a woman’s sexual pleasure or desire, thus reducing the likelihood that she will become sexually active with anyone other than her husband. It's also a way to ensure that a girl or woman stays "pure" before marriage. These people will go as far as doing anything to make sure their daughters stay virgins before marriage, even if it's cutting a part of their bodies.

Hilary Burrage, a sociologist and writer, talks in her book "Female Mutilation: The truth behind the horrifying global practice of female genital mutilation" (New Holland Publishers, 2016), about the horrible impacts FGM later has on sexual and psychological health. She lists them as follows:

Impacts of FGM on physical health: Immediate (up to 10 days)

• Severe pain
• Hemorrhage
• Shock (sometimes death)
• Infection of the wound
• Acute urinary retention (with pain and burning)
• Urinary track infection
• Abscesses and ulcers
• Fever
• Septicaemia
• Tetanus
• Gangrene

Impacts of FGM on physical health: Medium and longer-term (after 10 days)

• Delay in wound healing due to infection, malnutrition and anemia
• Anemia (and failure to thrive if malnourished child)
• Chronic pelvic infection
• Fibrosis (scarring at site of cutting)
• Keloids (abnormal growth of scar tissue)
• Synechia (abnormal fusion of labia)
• Tissue rotation (abnormal scarring and retraction of anatomical zones)
• Chronic back and pelvic pain
• Urinary problems/incontinence/kidney failure
• Bladder calculus/stone formation
• Hypersensitivity of entire genital area, including neuroma on the dorsal nerve of the clitoris
• Dysmenorrhoea/menstrual problems
• Hematocolpos (accumulation internally of menstrual blood)
• Pain at sexual intercourse
• Recto/vaginal fistulae
• Unwillingness to seek general medical advice, in case FGM becomes evident
• Hepatitis and other infections (because of poorly healed wounds)

Impacts of FGM on sexual health

• Spasm/pain during intercourse
• Anxiety resulting in vaginal dryness
• Less sexual satisfaction/difficult to reach orgasm
• Less (reported) sexual desire/lack of arousal
• Shame or embarrassment about intimacy
• Greater risk of HIV (because of cuts which bleed)
• Medical checks (e.g. smear tests) difficult, and may be avoided, so early prognoses of ill health are missed
• Morbidity due to anal intercourse, where vaginal access is difficult
• Infertility

FGM is a very broad topic that can't be summed up in an article, but now you know it exists.

Sometimes, it hits me how I am lucky that I was born in an educated, well-off and "liberal" family in the city, because these are the kind of people in Egypt who completely oppose FGM. My parents are the ones who taught me about FGM, how it's brutal and not OK, and how it's absurd the way people justify it under the name of religion because this is what people do when they want to do absurd actions.

If I'm lucky to be from the 9 percent in my country, and you're lucky to be born in a first-world, developed country, we should then be aware that what we may be taking for granted, is a dream for others. A big dream.

P.S. In Cairo, this process can be performed for 30 Egyptian pounds. This is $3. Just saying.