A invoice aimed toward lifting the ban on feminine genital mutilation (FGM) has been tabled in The Gambia’s parliament by an impartial lawmaker.
Feminine genital mutilation was outlawed within the primarily Muslim nation in 2015 when Yahya Jammeh was president.
He stated it was not required in Islam.
Nonetheless, influential Muslim clerics have been pushing for the ban to be repealed, whereas ladies’s rights activists have vowed to marketing campaign for it to stay in place.
Jammeh’s 22-year authoritarian rule got here to an finish in 2016.
Greater than three-quarters of Gambian females aged between 15 and 49 have undergone FGM, in line with the United Nations.
Within the process’s most extreme kind, after eradicating the delicate clitoris, the genitals are reduce and stitched closed in order that the girl can not have or get pleasure from intercourse.
Followers of an outspoken Muslim cleric, Abdoulie Fatty, rallied in help of the invoice shortly earlier than it was launched in parliament on Monday.
They chanted: “Feminine circumcision is my non secular perception, Gambia will not be on the market.”
Final yr, the cleric helped pay the fines of three ladies who have been convicted of finishing up FGM on younger women.
On the time, The Gambia Supreme Islamic Council, the principle physique of Muslim clerics within the nation, known as for the ban to be scrapped.
There are totally different views in Islam over the follow, with some main students, like these in Egypt, opposing it.
The Gambian lawmaker championing the invoice, Almammeh Gibba, stated it sought to “uphold non secular purity and safeguard cultural norms and values”, the privately owned Level newspaper reported.
He stated the follow couldn’t be described as mutilation if carried out correctly.
The top of The Gambia’s Feminine Legal professionals Affiliation, Anna Njie, stated that repealing the ban could be a backward step.
“We have now no authority to inform the Nationwide Meeting what to do, however now we have rights reserved within the structure to take authorized motion when sure elementary rights are violated,” she was quoted by the native Normal newspaper as saying.
The chief of the bulk get together in parliament, Billay Tunkara, stated it had not but taken a call on whether or not to help the invoice.
“We’re taking our time as a result of it’s a very delicate space that doesn’t solely must do with faith or cultural features but in addition human rights and well being points,” he stated. – BBC
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