Gambia Votes To Uphold Ban On Female Genital Mutilation

Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), colloquially known as female circumcision, has been long contended in the Gambian government. On July 15, the West African country's Parliament voted to uphold a 2015 ban on the practice, reversing a recent bill that sought to repeal legal protections for millions of girls and women. Parliament Speaker Fabakary Jatta ruled that it was “impossible” for the bill, which passed a second reading in March 2024, to be read a third time and to pass without those clauses. “I so rule that the bill is rejected, and the legislative process exhausted,” he said.

What Is FGM? 

Female Genital Mutilation refers to the practice of partial or total removal of the female external genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons. A 2021 UNICEF report stated that 76% of Gambian women and girls aged between 15 and 49 had undergone FGM. 

Health professionals have asserted that female genital mutilation not only violates women's and girls' rights but also has serious health repercussions including infections, bleeding, infertility, and complications in childbirth. The practice also impairs women's rights to sexual pleasure. UNICEF estimates that 200 million girls and women worldwide have undergone some form of FGM, which it recognises as a human rights violation.

Former Gambian dictator Yahya Jammeh, now in exile, imposed a ban on this invasive practice in 2015, punishable by up to three years in prison. However, in March 2024, 42 members of the Assembly voted in favour of advancing a controversial bill to overturn the ban on FGM, citing that the practice is deeply rooted in Gambian culture. The bill argued that the ban infringes on the right to practice traditions in the Muslim-dominated nation.

Jaha Marie Dukureh of Safe Hands for Girls, an NGO seeking to end FGM, told Al Jazeera in an interview earlier this year, “The people who applaud FGM in this country, a lot of them are men. These are men who don’t have the same lived experiences that we do, and women who have been through this practice continue to tell them every single day what their suffering is, what their pain is."

Gambia is a Muslim-dominated country, where it is believed that FGM is "one of Islam's virtues." The controversy flared up in mid-2023 when three women received fines or prison sentences for performing the banned procedure. An Islamic cleric paid the fines and The Gambia Supreme Islamic Council issued a fatwa (ruling) upholding the legality of FGM.