Gambia's bid to unban FGM divides families and parliament
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[July 13, 2024]
By Sofia Christensen
BANJUL (Reuters) - For Mariama Jarjou, taking her two daughters to a
traditional circumciser when they were 5 and 4 was an act of love - a
painful but important ritual that would give them status in their
village and make them eligible for marriage.
An uncut woman is a "solima" in the local Mandinka language in Gambia.
People will tell her she smells bad, said Jarjou, who is now in her 50s.
No one will eat the food she cooks, be her friend or want her as a wife.
Few dared question Gambia's former dictator, Yahya Jammeh, when he
outlawed female genital mutilation (FGM) over a decade later, in 2015,
saying it was not required by Islam, the country's majority religion.
But today, Jarjou strongly supports an attempt in parliament to repeal
the ban.
If it succeeds, Gambia, a small West African nation of fewer than 3
million people, would be the first country in the world to make FGM
legal again after outlawing it. A final vote is expected on July 24.
"If we stop (FGM), women will suffer ... and our children will not know
our culture," Jarjou said.
Banned in over 70 countries worldwide, FGM remains widespread in some
African nations and diaspora communities. An estimated 144 million women
and girls on the continent have been subjected to the practice, which
usually involves the partial or total removal of the external genitalia.
The consequences are lifelong and can include chronic pain; recurring
infections; problems with urination, menstruation and childbirth; pain
during sexual intercourse and trauma. The World Health Organization says
FGM brings no health benefits, only harm.
In Gambia, many people continue to take girls to be cut despite the ban,
which authorities have not enforced seriously, anti-FGM campaigners say.
Almost three-quarters of women aged 15 to 49 have undergone the
practice, 65% of them when they were younger than 5, according to the
latest government health survey in 2019-2020. The figure drops to around
46% for girls under 15, the survey found.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2024/Jul/13/images/ads/current/ldn_lda_BUSDIRCOVER_2024.png)
The first FGM convictions came eight years after the ban was introduced,
in 2023, when three women were found guilty of cutting eight infant
girls. This sparked a public debate about the practice for the first
time in Gambia, one that has divided villages and families, and now
parliament.
"People are pushing and pulling. Some say it's good; some say it's not,"
said one of Jarjou's daughters, Jainaba Ndure.
"I think it's not good," Ndure added out of her mother's earshot, saying
she feared having children would be painful.
Now 28, Ndure learnt through NGO-led advocacy about the harmful
consequences of FGM on women's health. She noted that elders like Jarjou
can feel offended by such campaigns.
"They say they are showing us bad pictures," she said, referring to
diagrams of women's reproductive organs.
CAREER BOOST
The move to repeal the FGM ban is being spearheaded by two powerful men:
Abdoulie Fatty, an influential Muslim cleric, and Almaneh Gibba, an
independent lawmaker representing a rural constituency where the
practice is widespread.
Fatty publicly defended the three convicted women and paid their fines,
urging the government to reconsider the ban in televised speeches and
sermons. Gibba, a vocal government critic, introduced the repeal bill in
parliament seven months later.
"Enough is enough," Gibba told Reuters. "We will only be free if we
repeal it."
The bill's supporters in Gambia have framed their campaign as a backlash
against what they describe as Western values being imposed by
international donors or former colonial powers, a theme that resonates
with many Africans. They also argue that the practice is rooted in
Islam, the religion of around 96% of Gambians, though many imams and
Islamic scholars dispute this.
For Fatty, a former state imam under Jammeh with no role in the current
government, and Gibba, who was previously little known outside his
constituency, the debate has been a career boost.
"They can just jump on a very controversial issue, and they will be
well-known," said Satang Nabaneh, a Gambian legal scholar.
Both men rejected suggestions their campaign was opportunistic. Fatty
said he had no interest in politics, while Gibba said he was upholding
religion, culture and tradition.
Rights advocates fear the bill's potential to ignite a wider effort to
dismantle protections for women and girls.
"If they succeed today, the next day the bill will be on child marriage,
then the next on gender-based violence," said Nafisa Binte Shafique, the
UNICEF representative in Gambia.
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Rights advocates also worry Gambia's bill could inspire similar
legislation in other African countries with FGM bans. Kenya's high court
rejected a petition to reverse its ban in 2021.
Gambia's President Adama Barrow, whose election in 2016 ended more than
two decades of oppressive rule under Jammeh, said his government would
continue enforcing the ban while the bill works its way through
parliament. The government does not support FGM but will allow democracy
to run its course, Information Minister Ismaila Ceesay told Reuters.
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![](../images/071324PIX/news_t44.jpg)
Gambian activist Fatou Baldeh reacts as she mediates a discussion
about female genital mutilation (FGM) involving women and a handful
of men sitting under a mango tree in Sintet, Gambia, June 8, 2024.
REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2024/Jul/13/images/ads/current/longview_lda_HEROES_2024.png)
The bill passed its second reading in March with only five out of 53
lawmakers voting against it and one abstaining. Out of five female
lawmakers, four voted in favour and one against. None agreed to be
interviewed.
But after holding weeks of public hearings, parliament's health and
gender affairs committees presented a joint report on July 8
recommending that Gambia maintain the ban.
The report described FGM as a "form of torture" and "discrimination
against women", drawing an angry response from Gibba, who said the
findings betrayed the trust of Muslims and traditional leaders.
After heated debate, lawmakers adopted the report by a vote of 35 to
17 with two abstentions.
Political analysts said some lawmakers may have been swayed by
testimonies from doctors and FGM survivors about the harmful
consequences, but it was too soon to tell what the final vote would
be.
Gibba remains confident the bill will pass, telling Reuters, “We are
asking for freedom of choice.”
Lawmaker Gibbi Mballow opposed the bill from the onset. He said this
was in part because his four young daughters underwent FGM without
his knowledge while visiting his mother. He only found out when the
youngest suffered such severe bleeding she had to be taken to
hospital.
Mballow said in his 15 years in parliament he had never seen a
debate get as fierce as this one, adding he received anonymous death
threats for voting "no".
"My political career is at risk," said Mballow. "Some of my
colleagues are terrified."
'PAIN IS OK'
In the village of Sintet, around 86 km (53 miles) east of the
capital, Banjul, women of all ages and a handful of men gathered in
a circle one June morning under a tall mango tree.
Fatou Baldeh, an anti-FGM activist, stood in the middle, cradling a
woman's baby as she mediated a discussion about the practice in her
native village.
There were men and women on both sides of the debate, sharing
personal stories and arguments. One young man said he wished he
could make sex painless for his wife.
Baldeh, who was subjected to FGM when she was 8, described the
mental associations a young girl can make when people she loves and
trusts take her to an exciting event that turns into a nightmare.
"You are teaching me as a young girl that pain is OK," she said,
adding that girls are also told to keep quiet about their trauma,
laying the foundations for a culture of silence.
Baldeh told Reuters that learning about FGM as it is described by
some aid groups felt insulting at first. Other women said they did
not like the language used to describe their bodies and experiences.
The term FGM covers a range of procedures. In Gambia, 73% of women
who have experienced it had their clitoris removed along with other
flesh, according to government figures, while 17% underwent a
practice known as infibulation, which involves narrowing the vaginal
opening by creating a covering seal.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2024/Jul/13/images/ads/current/napa_sda_HEROES_2024.png)
For Hawa Jallow, who spent years cutting young girls around the
rural town of Bansang, her role upholding the tradition was a source
of pride.
"If you don't have a certain type of intelligence, you cannot do
it," said Jallow, 45, who learnt the practice from her late mother.
After FGM was banned, an NGO hired her to manage the community's HIV
drugs, which she keeps in a dusty steel cabinet in her office. But
she said she supports the move to make the practice legal again,
arguing it only causes problems when people do it incorrectly, "just
for money".
Women like Jallow are highly respected in their communities. They
remain close to the families of the girls they cut, who consult them
for health, spiritual and marital advice, anti-FGM campaigners say.
Many Gambians were shaken when three such women were arrested and
fined, decisions that ignited protests both for and against
repealing the ban.
Campaigners say those convictions were outliers.
Fatou Sakho, a 34-year-old librarian, was horrified when she learnt
last October that her ex-husband's family had taken their daughter
to be cut without her consent.
She has been trying to take the people responsible to court,
spending months gathering evidence and pressing police to take
action. But despite her efforts, no one has been charged.
The attempt to reverse the ban compounds her despair.
"I can't find the right words for my anger and frustration towards
that bill," she said. "I will never understand why grown men find it
so important to discuss and fight over ... how to cut off female
genitalia."
(Editing by Estelle Shirbon and Alexandra Zavis)
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