The Gambia has taken steps towards lifting a ban on female circumcision, a move that could make it the first country in the world to reverse legal protections against the practice for millions of women and girls.
The debate flared up in August 2023, when three women were fined for carrying out FGM on eight infant girls, becoming the first people convicted under the law.
On March 18 2024 Politicians in the West African nation’s parliament voted 42 to four to advance the controversial bill, which would repeal a landmark 2015 ban on Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).
The bill will now be sent to a parliamentary committee for further scrutiny before a third reading, a process that is expected to take three months. The committee can make amendments to the measure.
Activists and Rights Organisations say the proposed legislation reverses years of progress and risks damaging the country’s human rights record.
Human Rights Watch states ‘FGM violates girls’ and women’s rights to health, security and physical integrity, rights to be free from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, rights to life, and rights to sexual and reproductive health’. Read more here
On behalf of the Nyang-Sanneh Institute numerous stakeholders signed the FGM Petition stating that FGM is harmful to women’s health and safety and has no sound basis in the teachings of the major faiths existing in The Gambia.