By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Parliament in Gambia is pushing for the reversal of the 2015 ban placed on Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), nine years after it was imposed by former military dictator, Yahya Jammeh who ruled the country for 22 years before he was ousted in 2016. This move widely considered draconian, is coming same month the global community is celebrating the International Women’s Day (IWD), an annual event which seeks to raise awareness on the need for the elimination of gender disparity, foster equity and drum support for inclusion.
This follows a motion by a member of the Parliament Almameh Gibba, who argued that the ban violates citizens’ rights to “practice their culture and religion” in the West Africa country with an overwhelming majority of Muslims. “The bill seeks to uphold religious loyalty and safeguard cultural norms and values,” he said.
In voting on the motion last Monday, The Heritage Times (HT) learnt that Gambia’s Parliament of 58 lawmakers comprising five women cast their votes in 42 to four to advance the controversial bill, which would repeal the 2015 landmark FGM ban.
The bill will now be sent to a standing committee of the Parliament for further legislative action before a third reading, a process expected to last three months. The committee can “fine-tune” the bill before the third reading after which it would be presented to President Adama Barrow for presidential assent. If finally passed into law, Gambia will become the first country in the world to make such reversal.
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The debate on reversal of the ban was sparked by the imposition of fines in August last year on three women for carrying out FGM on eight infant girls, becoming the first people convicted under the law.
Meanwhile, the United Nations through its children agency, UNICEF defines FGM as “the partial or total removal of the female external genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons”. It says this practice can lead to serious health problems, including infections, bleeding, infertility and complications in childbirth, and impairs sexual pleasure.
According to a 2021 report by UNICEF, seventy-six percent of Gambian females aged between 15 and 49 have undergone FGM which it says is a violation of their autonomy to the use of their bodies. “Girls’ bodies are their own. FGM robs them of autonomy over their bodies and causes irreversible harm,” said the UN’s The Gambia office on X ahead of the debate.
A report earlier in the month by the UN says the number of women and girls who have undergone FGM worldwide has increased to 230 million from 200 million eight years ago. It added that the largest share of those women and girls were found in African countries, with more than 144 million cases, followed by more than 80 million in Asia and the number surpassing six million in the Middle East.
Among countries in Africa where there is prevalence of FGM as listed by UN in its report include, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Ivory Coast, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda and Zambia, while in Asia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka are some of the countries where the practice is recorded.
Proposed Legislation A Damage to Country’s Human Rights Record — Activists
Meanwhile, activists and rights organisations say the proposed legislation undermines years of progress and could pose a risk to the country’s human rights record.
Jaha Marie Dukureh a victim of FGM and the founder of an NGO that pushes end to FGM, Safe Hands for Girls described the practice as “child abuse”. Dukureh said she watched her sister bleed to death after undergoing the procedure.
“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,” she said.
She further expressed concern that if this succeeds, it may widen the quest to further shrink women’s rights in the country. “If they succeed with this repeal, we know that they might come after the child marriage law and even the domestic violence law. This is not about religion but the cycle of controlling women and their bodies,” she said.
The chairperson of the local Center for Women’s Rights and Leadership, Fatou Jagne Senghore in response said the bill is “aimed at curtailing women’s rights and reversing the little progress made in recent years.”
Also, the president of the local Female Lawyers Association, Anna Njie, said the practice “has been proven to cause harm through medical evidence.”
It’s A Shame On Gambia’s Parliament — Survivor
An FGM survivor and the Executive Secretary Global Youth Consortium Against Female Genital Mutilation, Costly Aderibigbe-Saba said the decision by the Parliament in Gambia to lift the ban is sad, unwarranted and shameful on the whole institution of the country’s legislature.
She condemned the pro-FGM activists and religious bodies backing it, insisting that there is no evidential backing to it found either in the Holy Bible or the Glorious Quran. According to her, it is something that ought not to be heard in the 21st century.
She expressed concern that the advocacy to end FGM will witness a setback around other countries within the African continent with the precedent being set by the Gambian Parliament. In an interview monitored by The Heritage Times (HT), she said, “What is happening in the Gambia is a threat to the right of women and girls. I was speaking with colleagues in Sierra Leone and other parts of Gambia recently and people told us that when they go out to advocate, people ask them why are you still talking about FGM?
“Look at Gambia, they are already repealing this law, so it is not just a problem of the Gambia, it is a problem of other countries, not just in West Africa, even Africa as a whole and it is a threat to the rights of women and girls across the globe”.
While listing Ethiopia, Egypt and Nigeria as other countries with the highest prevalence of FGM in Africa, she said if the pro-FGM law is successfully repealed in The Gambia, other laws protecting the rights of women and girls are under threat.
While highlighting health implications of FGM, Aderibigbe-Saba said because of the crude procedure under which it is done, some girls have bled to death.
A medical practitioner, Aderibigbe-Saba said infections and obstetrics complications that arise from FGM are enormous. According to her, women that had type 3 FGM find it extremely difficult to go through vaginal delivery. She said FGM though not only the source of maternal mortality in Africa, it contributes significantly to it.
She said the use of one unsterilized instrument on multiple girls for the purpose of FGM in many African communities has been discovered to be an easy way to spread diseases from one person to the other.
Practice “One of the Virtues of Islam” — GSIC
Gambia’s top Islamic body, the Supreme Islamic Council (GSIC) has described female circumcision as “one of the virtues of Islam” backing the move by the legislature to de-criminalize it.
GSIC calls on President Barrow’s administration to ensure that those calling for the eradication of FGM in The Gambia face the music. The GSIC said the legitimacy of female circumcision has been proven in several established hadiths on the authority of the Prophet of Islam.
“Therefore, Muslim jurists agreed on its legality. Some jurists have even argued that female circumcision is obligatory, whereas others have considered it a recommended act of Sunnah,” the Gambia’s umbrella Islamic body said. It added that none of those, it called reliable scholars, had denied the legality of female circumcision“ in the manner prescribed by the Messenger of Allah; peace be upon him”.
“In this context, the GSIC calls on the government of The Gambia to reconsider the law criminalizing female circumcision and to hold anyone who practices such accountable because, as Muslims, religion is the most precious thing we have in this life,” GSIC said on Thursday.
“The GSIC would also like to clarify that Allah has decreed female circumcision, and it, therefore, condemns quarters and individuals who denounce the practice and calls on the authorities to hold them accountable,” it added.
The GSIC said female circumcision is not “a merely inherited custom as falsely claimed by those who are clueless about Islamic law”. “Rather, it is one of the virtues of Islam and among the Sunnah practices dictated by the Messenger of Allah, Peace be Upon Him, who said: “Five practices are characteristics of the Fitra,” of which he mentioned circumcision,” it stated.
