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 HUMAN RIGHTS 

UNFPA executive director Dr Natalia Kanem has said repealing the ban on female genital mutilation (FGM) in the Gambia would deprive women and girls of their rights.

FGM, which she describes as an "entrenched and harmful practice", involves the partial or total removal of the female external genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons.

As a result, survivors suffer serious health problems, including infections, bleeding, chronic pain, depression, sexual health problems, infertility, complications in childbirth and even death.

In a statement on Thursday, Dr Kanem said repealing the ban on FGM would also contravene a number of international and regional agreements the Gambia has signed.

They include the 2012 United Nations General Assembly resolution against FGM, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child. 

"Moves in one country also risk emboldening others to try to renege on their duties to protect the rights of women and girls," she added.

▪️  'FGM survivors are resilient, powerful agents of change'

UNFPA executive director Dr Natalia Kanem says turning back the clock on FGM in the Gambia would deprive women and girls of their rights

'Outdated'

Dr Kanem, who leads the world's largest fund for financing population programmes, said revoking the anti-FGM law would present "a major setback in our efforts to end violence and harmful practices against women and girls and improve their lives".

The ban on FGM in Gambia has been in place for nearly a decade now — since 2015. If convicted under the Women’s Amendment Act of 2015, perpetrators face up to three years in jail.

But in March this year, legislators in the West African nation voted to move on to the next parliamentary stage of a divisive bill that seeks to lift that ban.

The move sparked protests outside Parliament in the capital Banjul, involving pro-FGM campaigners and those advocating for the ban to remain in place.

Inside Parliament, MPs voted 42 in favour and four against to send the bill to a parliamentary committee for further examination before it returns for another reading.

Under international human rights law, FGM is a human rights violation.

A 2021 report by UNICEF (the UN children's agency) said that 76 percent of Gambian women aged between 15 and 49 have undergone FGM.

"Culture and religion can never be used to justify it [FGM]," said UNFPA's Kanem.

In fact, ex-Gambian dictator Yahya Jammeh banned FGM in the Muslim-majority country nine years ago, with a justification  that the practice is outdated and not a requirement of Islam.

News agency AFP reported the Islamic Council — the Gambia's main Muslim organization — as previously saying FGM is "not just a merely inherited custom" but "one of the virtues of Islam".

It wants the government to reconsider the ban.

▪️  Drawing men and boys into quest to end FGM

Activists and rights organisations say the suggested legislation in the Gambia reverses years of progress

'FGM is never safe'

According to Amnesty International, only two cases have been prosecuted under the Gambia's nine-year-old anti-FGM law, with the first conviction made last August.

Globally, over 230 million girls and women alive today have been subjected to FGM, which is a 15 per cent increase since 2016.

Uganda is among the countries with a law banning FGM. Its FGM Act of 2010 criminalizes the performance, procurement, attempting, aiding and abetting of all forms of the practice.

Both medicalized FGM and cross-border FGM are criminalized and punished under this legislation that has been in place for the last 14 years in the East African nation.

But on the developments happening on the other side of the continent, UNFPA ED Kanem said she is "alarmed" by efforts in the Gambia to repeal its law, and warned that it would be "an unprecedented step backwards".

"The Gambia has made significant gains in women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights, including the 2015 law banning this entrenched and harmful practice," she said in her statement on the matter.

"Female genital mutilation does not make women cleaner. Indeed, it does cause medical complications, and it is never safe, even if performed by medical personnel.

"Worryingly, we are also witnessing similar efforts in other countries to repeal the laws protecting women and girls from discrimination, violence and harmful practices. 

"We stand ready to support the Gambia and other countries in their efforts to turn the tide on this global scourge.

"Let us not rest until every woman and girl has the right to live a healthy, empowered, and full life."

In the global quest to end FGM by the end of this decade, UNFPA and UNICEF are running a joint programme aimed at accelerating the elimination of the practice.

It works with communities to push for action at global, regional and national levels in 17 countries — including the Gambia — to abandon the practice.

The programme also provides services to survivors, and supports data and evidence generation to better inform advocacy and programme initiatives.