The Gambia officially outlawed female genital mutilation (FGM) after President Yahya Jammeh made an unexpected announcement on Nov. 23, 2015. President Jammeh declared the ban in his hometown, while on an annual tour of the West African state. Anti-FGM activists have embraced the initiative, citing the need and responsibility to protect the health of women and young girls who have experienced and are at risk of the practice.
Widely condemned as a human rights violation, FGM involves the cutting of young girls’ external genitalia to either partially or completely remove the labia and clitoris. The procedure is extremely dangerous, and young girls are susceptible to potentially fatal complications following the operation, including bacterial infection, severe shock, and bleeding. Future complications include recurrent bladder and urinary tract infections, cysts, infertility, and complications during intercourse and childbirth.
FGM is widely practiced throughout North Africa and the Middle East and UNICEF estimates that 125 million women and girls have been subjected to the practise across the region. Of the nine ethnic communities in the Gambia, seven groups continue to cut young women and girls. As a result, over 75 per cent of all Gambian women have been subjected to FGM. However, there remains strong support for cutting: two thirds of Gambian women back the practice.
FGM is performed on cultural and religious grounds―often to preserve a girl’s virginity―and pressure from ethnic and religious leaders previously impeded the Gambian government’s efforts to end the practice. However, public campaigns since 2007 have successfully highlighted the procedure’s severe risks, acknowledging it as a breach of women’s human rights. As a result of these public campaigns, over 1,000 communities and 150 cutters have abandoned the FGM practice.
In an interview with Reuters, anti-FGM activist Jaha Dukereh said that, in recent years, the Gambian government has earned the support of religious leaders and community elders. Currently, several Gambian charities seek to demonstrate the practice’s incompatibility with Islam—the country’s predominant religion.
According to 28 Too Many, an anti-FGM non-governmental organization, religious-oriented activism―divorcing FGM from accepted religious practises―remains an important campaign tool in swaying the opinion of many Gambian citizens. It is unknown when new legislation outlawing the practise will be introduced.
This is the first time that the Gambian government will have explicitly outlawed FGM, despite the country having signed and ratified the 2003 Maputo Protocol, officially known as the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Right of Women in Africa. The treaty guarantees the rights of women across the African continent.
Article 4 of the Maputo Protocol obliges signatories to enact legislation prohibiting FGM and penalizing those that perform the procedure.
The Gambian ban follows that of Nigeria, another signatory to the Maputo Protocol, which outlawed FGM in May 2015.