A decision on whether to overturn a ban on female genital mutilation (FGM) in the Gambia has been postponed for three months after MPs called for more consultation.
FGM was outlawed in the country eight years ago and is punishable by up to three years’ imprisonment.
Hundreds of people protested outside parliament on Monday, most supporting a repeal of the ban, Agence France-Presse reported.
According to the country’s health survey, three-quarters of women between 15 and 49 have undergone FGM, and anti-FGM campaigners fear the proposed bill is undoing years of work.
Jaha Dukureh, the founder of an anti-FGM group, Safe Hands for Girls, said: “It was the most heartbreaking thing to watch men invalidate our experiences and reduce our pain to western influence.
“The bill was sent to committee. This can be good and it can be bad. The good thing that came out of today is that FGM is still illegal in the Gambia. Sending the bill to committee means that we have a little more time but that means that in 2024 we are still debating cutting off the genitals of girls in my home country.”
The bill’s referral to a parliamentary committee means it will be examined for at least three months before returning to parliament for debate and a vote.
Introducing the bill to parliament, the MP Almameh Gibba said overturning the ban would “uphold religious loyalty and safeguard cultural norms and values”. Opponents of the ban have often framed it as contrary to Islamic rules, while anti-FGM campaigners say the practice does not have any basis in the Qur’an.
Speaking before Monday’s decision, Janet Ramatoulie Sallah-Njie, the special rapporteur on the rights of women in Africa for the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, said she was concerned that if the FGM law was scrapped, laws around early and forced marriage could follow.
“We have to hope that civil society is fully galvanised and vigorously advocating,” said Sallah-Njie, who is from the Gambia.
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