Banjul, GAMBIA — Gambia will maintain its ban on female genital cutting following a historic decision by the National Assembly on Monday that marked a victory for women’s rights advocates in this West African nation.
Following nearly a year of heated debate, the majority of Gambia’s lawmakers rejected every clause of a controversial bill that would have repealed the ban on female genital cutting, which is also known as female genital mutilation (FGM). The speaker of Gambia’s National Assembly said the rejection of a bill at this stage — ahead of the final vote, which had been scheduled for July 24 — was unprecedented.
Lawmakers’ rejection of the bill followed months of intense activism led by Gambian women, who faced threats and harassment as they led campaigns to explain the negative effects of cutting on their lives and that of their families. In March, the vast majority of lawmakers had voted to advance the bill, sparking widespread fear that Gambia could be the first nation in the world to roll back such a protection.
“I am relieved but sad that we had to be taken through this torment,” said Fatou Baldeh, a Gambian activist and survivor who has received international attention for her advocacy against the practice. “I am so proud of Gambian women for not giving up. We refused to let go.”
Standing outside parliament as women hugged and danced and music blasted, Sirreh Saho, 29, said she was so excited she could barely process the news, which they had “fought so much for” over the course of months. She and her older sister, Fatou Saho, have been fighting for justice for Fatou’s daughter, who was cut without her permission — and against the law.
“The only thing that is left is to enforce the law,” Sirreh Saho said. “As long as the law is not enforced, then it’s just black writing on a white paper.”
In Gambia, a nation of about 2.5 million, the United Nations estimates that about 75 percent of women ages 15 to 49 have been subject to cutting, which can involve removing part of the clitoris and labia minora and, in the most extreme cases, a sealing of the vaginal opening. Globally, more than 200 million women and girls are estimated to be survivors of female genital cutting, most of whom live in sub-Saharan Africa.
Proponents of the practice said it is linked to tradition and religion in this majority-Muslim nation, claiming it was taught by the prophet Muhammad. (Other Muslim leaders have said it is not required by Islam, and it is not practiced in many Muslim-majority countries.)
Gambia’s law, which was put in place in 2015, comes with a potential prison sentence of up to three years, or a fine of about $740. But there have only been three convictions under the law — and it was those convictions that sparked the current debate, with Abdoulie Fatty, a prominent imam, paying the fines of the women convicted and launching the campaign to overturn the ban.
Sitting in parliament Monday with other religious leaders, Fatty watched the proceedings stone-faced. He said they planned to target lawmakers who rejected the bill in upcoming elections, declaring them “not real Muslims.” And he vowed that cutting — which he calls “female circumcision” — would continue.
“We are imams,” he said, noting that more than 95 percent of people in Gambia are Muslim. “They listen to us.”
Medical experts say the procedures, which do not have medical benefits, can cause a range of short- and long-term harms, including infections, severe pain, scarring, infertility and loss of pleasure.
“We can breathe now,” said Jaha Dukureh, a Gambian activist whose little sister died as a result of a botched procedure and who found out on her wedding night, at 15, that she had been sealed as a baby. “We stood on the right side of history. And regardless of the threats we faced, we stood our ground.”
Lawmakers said that turning points involved an announcement last month by President Adama Barrow — whose office had before then been silent on the matter — that he supported maintaining the ban and a trip by members of the health committee to Egypt, where they heard from lawmakers, civil society members and religious scholars about why Egypt had criminalized the practice.
“We are all religious,” said Amadou Camara, who chairs a joint health and gender committee that recommended in a report earlier this month that cutting should remain outlawed. “But at some point you have to use your good sense and your mind.”
Camara and other lawmakers who supported maintaining the ban said at an event Friday that they have received numerous threats for their positions.
Abdoulie Ceesay, the deputy majority leader, said that lawmakers know that some Gambians feel “we denied them their right” and that there will have to be continued education campaigns about the practice.
Aminata Ceesay, an investigating officer with Gambia’s National Human Rights Commission who has been working in communities in recent months on issues related to cutting, said that too many women have accepted the side effects as “normal.”
“With education, they realize that these things are not normal,” she said in an interview. “It has never been easy, even among the educated, for people to talk about their experiences as survivors … but I think things are changing now.”
• By Rachel Chason
Rachel Chason is The Washington Post’s West Africa bureau chief
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