In the third and latest major demonstration in Lebanon, protesters of the sectarian or "confessional" system took special aim at religious family laws that prevent civil marriages and discriminate against women in various ways.
In the year since Egypt outlawed female genital mutilation the government hasn't prosecuted a single case. "It's no longer on the government's agenda, they've moved on," Seham Abdul Salam, a medical doctor turned anthropologist, said in a recent interview. Nonetheless, some activists say the law is a tool, among others, for gradually dismantling an ancient tradition.
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