A former deputy director of health statistics and research for the Sudanese Ministry of Health, El Dareer led a research project into FGM at the University of Khartoum faculty of medicine from 1977 to 1981.[3] As part of this project, she conducted the first large-scale survey of women who had experienced FGM,[4][5] interviewing 3,210 women and 1,545 men in five Sudanese provinces with a high prevalence of Type III FGM (infibulation).[6]