FGM definitely predates the arrival of Islam in Egypt and it's quite possible this is the region of the world the practice originated in.
I shouldn't have been so careless with my words. I was talking about the Egyptian Church, not the ancient Egyptians from the time before Christianity. It was not known among
the Copts specifically until
after the arrival of Islam, as testified to again in Coptic and even non-Coptic historical sources. See the following three-part history from Dioscorus Boles' very interesting blog
On Coptic Nationalism:
CIRCUMCISION AND THE COPTS – A HISTORY: PART I
CIRCUMCISION AND THE COPTS – A HISTORY: PART II
CIRCUMCISION AND THE COPTS – A HISTORY: PART III
Sometimes happens to Christian girls in Egypt would be an understatement.
Indeed so, as the prevalence of it in the Coptic community is very high overall, but apparently tends to vary quite a bit with education and urbanization. I suspect this is why the Coptic NGO mentioned in the report you've linked forcuses its efforts on upper Egyptian villages, because the practice is much more common in those places.
Also from your report:
"A 2004 study in the journal Social Forces argues that the partly politically-motivated positions taken over FGM by Islamists and Coptic Christian groups throughout the 1970s and 1980s may have caused the practice to decline more rapidly among Christians than Muslims."
"…a higher percentage of daughters of Christian than Muslim families were not circumcised at the time of interview (54% vs. 42%) and a lower percentage of daughters of Christian than Muslim families had experienced more extensive forms of cutting (30% vs. 43% excised). A lower percentage of Christian than Muslim mothers of uncircumcised daughters also intended at the time of interview to have their daughters circumcised
(54% vs. 85%) such that the percentage of daughters already or expected to be circumcised was lower among Christian than Muslim families. …although the probability of circumcision appears to be declining among both religious groups in Minya, a much larger percentage of Christian than Muslim daughters can expect to remain uncircumcised by age 13. A majority of Christian and Muslim daughters continue to be circumcised in Minya, however."
54% vs. 85% is a much larger difference. Both constitute majorities, and both are completely unacceptable (any percentage is too much), but it is clear that in any case there is a difference between the communities, and that the practice is declining faster in Coptic communities than Muslim ones, because there is no basis for it in Christianity, whereas in Islam, even if it isn't in the Qur'an, it is in the Sunnah more widely-speaking.
So it is to the point in the Coptic Orthodox community, of which I am a part, that if you meet a Coptic girl you can assume that she may have been a victim of FGM depending on where she came from and how recently she came from Egypt, but there are intervening factors that are not necessarily there for other communities, because for the Muslims it is not just a traditional
cultural practice but imbued with some sense of necessity due to the assertion of "traditional female roles" by Islamists in recent decades. So the Muslims must fight against powerful forces
in their religion to get rid of it, which is not the case for us.
At any rate, I hope that both Christians and Muslims can rid their communities of this evil and barbaric practice.