Gambia keeps ban on female genital cutting after fears it would be repealed

In recent months, activists, doctors and survivors have mounted a massive education campaign on the practice, which is widely considered by medical professionals to be unnecessary and potentially harmful.

Globally, more than 200 million women and girls are estimated to be survivors of female genital cutting, which can involve removing part of the clitoris and labia minora and, in the most extreme cases, a sealing of the vaginal opening.

“We won,” said Jaha Dukureh, a Gambian activist as she stood outside parliament after the decision. “We stood on the right side of history. And regardless of the threats we faced, we stood our ground.”

Women hugged and danced outside the National Assembly. “We can breathe now,” one young woman said as she clasped hands with another.

“I am relieved but sad that we had to be taken through this torment,” said Fatou Baldeh, who has also been a staunch advocate agains the practice. “I am so proud of Gambian women for not giving up. We refused to let go.”*

Proponents of repealing the ban — including several powerful religious leaders in Gambia, which is majority-Muslim — said that families should be free to choose and claimed that the practice was taught by the prophet Muhammad. (Other Muslim leaders have condemned it, and it is not practiced in numerous Muslim-majority countries).

Since female genital cutting, which is widely known by opponents as female genital mutilation, or FGM, was made illegal in Gambia in 2015, only three people have been prosecuted under the law. The United Nations estimates that 75 percent of women in Gambia ages 15 to 49 have been subject to the practice. When those women were convicted in August, it sparked a massive backlash that included the introduction of the bill to repeal the ban.

Abdoulie Fatty, one of the imams behind the bill, sat stone-faced, watching the proceedings in parliament on Monday. He said that he and other religious leaders planned to target those who voted against the bill in upcoming elections, saying that he would declare them “not real Muslims.” He vowed that cutting — which he calls “female circumcision” — would continue in Gambia.

“We are imams,” he said. “They listen to us.”