Gambia may lift ban on female genital mutilation

Hundreds of Gambians are gathering outside parliament to protest over an issue that has divided the country for months. Photo: Malik Njie/Reuters

Gambian Lawmakers voted on Monday to pass a controversial bill aimed at repealing a ban on female genital mutilation (FGM).

The issue has divided the tiny West African country into several months, hundreds of people gathered in protest. outside parliament.

According to AFP journalists, there were more supporters of FGM than those who called for maintaining the ban, which has been in force since 2015.

“The bill aims to promote religious loyalty and protect cultural norms and values,” Almame Gibba, the lawmaker who introduced the bill, said during the debate.

“The use of a ban on female circumcision is a direct violation of the rights of citizens to practice their culture and religion,» he added.

«A denial of other rights.»

But activists and human rights organizations say the proposed legislation reverses years of progress and risks damaging the country's human rights record.

< p>“There is an imminent risk that this is just a first step and could lead to the rollback of other rights, such as the law on child marriage… not only in The Gambia but in the region as a whole,” Divya Srinivasan, from the NGO women's rights advocacy Equality Now, reported AFP.

Lawmakers voted 42 in favor and four against to send the bill to a parliamentary committee for at least three months for further study before it returns for a third reading.< /p>

“Hearing mostly men speak on behalf of women and talk about what should happen to women's bodies is just the most disheartening thing,” said Jaha Doucouré, an anti-FGM activist who has been subjected to the practice herself and who has watched her sister was bleeding. death after the procedure.

“For a woman who lived with this practice, it was just one of the most heartbreaking sights,” she told AFP after the debate.

< img src="/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/72fb4d1dfb0363fadca45751d22c69bd.jpg" />Female genital mutilation can lead to many serious health problems, including infections, bleeding and infertility. Photo: Brian Inganga/AP

According to a 2021 report by the UN children's agency UNICEF, 76 percent of Gambian women aged 15 to 49 have undergone FGM.

UNICEF defines the practice as «partial or complete removal female». external genitalia or other damage to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons.»

This can lead to serious health problems, including infections, bleeding, infertility and complications during childbirth, and may impair sexual pleasure.

This can lead to serious health problems, including infections, bleeding, infertility and complications during childbirth.

p>

“The girls’ bodies are their own. FGM deprives them of autonomy over their bodies and causes irreversible harm,” the UN office in the Gambia tweeted ahead of the debate.

“Dangerous precedent”

The UN Human Rights Office called for the bill to be withdrawn. , while Amnesty International said it would set a «dangerous precedent» for women's rights.

Yahya Jammeh, the former dictator of The Gambia, banned FGM in the Muslim-majority country in 2015, calling it outdated and which is a requirement of Islam.

Parliament later passed Gambia's first law specifically banning the practice, which is now punishable by up to three years in prison.

But since 2015, only two cases have been brought . According to Amnesty International, the first conviction was handed down in August 2023.

The problem escalated last year when three women were fined or sentenced to prison for performing FGM.

Islamic Council , the country's main Muslim organization, said the practice was «not just an inherited custom» but «one of the virtues of Islam.»

It called on the government to reconsider the ban.