In latest months, activists, docs and survivors have mounted a large schooling marketing campaign on the observe, which is broadly thought of by medical professionals to be pointless and probably dangerous.
Globally, greater than 200 million ladies and ladies are estimated to be survivors of feminine genital reducing, which may contain eradicating a part of the clitoris and labia minora and, in essentially the most excessive instances, a sealing of the vaginal opening.
“We received,” mentioned Jaha Dukureh, a Gambian activist as she stood outdoors parliament after the choice. “We stood on the precise facet of historical past. And whatever the threats we confronted, we stood our floor.”
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Ladies hugged and danced outdoors the Nationwide Meeting. “We will breathe now,” one younger girl mentioned as she clasped palms with one other.
“I’m relieved however unhappy that we needed to be taken by means of this torment,” mentioned Fatou Baldeh, who has additionally been a staunch advocate agains the observe. “I’m so pleased with Gambian ladies for not giving up. We refused to let go.”*
Proponents of repealing the ban — together with a number of highly effective spiritual leaders in Gambia, which is majority-Muslim — mentioned that households must be free to decide on and claimed that the observe was taught by the prophet Muhammad. (Different Muslim leaders have condemned it, and it isn’t practiced in quite a few Muslim-majority nations).
Since feminine genital reducing, which is broadly recognized by opponents as feminine genital mutilation, or FGM, was made unlawful in Gambia in 2015, solely three individuals have been prosecuted underneath the regulation. The United Nations estimates that 75 p.c of ladies in Gambia ages 15 to 49 have been topic to the observe. When these ladies have been convicted in August, it sparked a large backlash that included the introduction of the invoice to repeal the ban.
Abdoulie Fatty, one of many imams behind the invoice, sat stone-faced, watching the proceedings in parliament on Monday. He mentioned that he and different spiritual leaders deliberate to focus on those that voted towards the invoice in upcoming elections, saying that he would declare them “not actual Muslims.” He vowed that reducing — which he calls “feminine circumcision” — would proceed in Gambia.
“We’re imams,” he mentioned. “They take heed to us.”
