BANJUL, Gambia — Lawmakers in the West African country of Gambia on Monday rejected a bill that would have overturned the ban on female genital mutilation. The attempt to become the first country in the world to reverse such a ban was closely followed by activists abroad.
The vote came after months of heated debate in the majority-Muslim nation of fewer than 3 million people. Lawmakers effectively killed the bill by rejecting all of its provisions and preventing a final vote.
The procedure, also called female genital mutilation, includes the partial or total removal of girls’ external genitals, often by professionals from the traditional community using tools such as razors or, sometimes, by health professionals. May cause severe bleeding, death and birth complications, but it continues to be a widespread practice in parts of Africa.
Activists and human rights groups feared that a reversal of the ban in Gambia could undo years of work against the centuries-old practice that is often carried out on girls under the age of 5 and rooted in concepts of sexual purity and control.
Religious conservatives who led the campaign to reverse the ban argued that the practice was “one of the virtues of Islam.”
“It’s a huge sense of relief,” one activist and survivor, Absa Samba, told the Associated Press after the vote. “There is a lot of emotion here. But I believe this is just the beginning of the work.”
In The Gambia, more than half of women and girls aged 15 to 49 have undergone the procedure, according to United Nations estimates. Former leader Yahya Jammeh unexpectedly banned the practice in 2015, without further explanation. But activists say enforcement has been weak and women have continued to be cut, with only two cases prosecuted.
Even now, “it was widespread and there was public promotion,” Samba said. She called for more public education about the health consequences of this practice.
UNICEF said earlier this year around 30 million women around the world have undergone female genital mutilation in the last eight years, most of them in Africa, but others in Asia and the Middle East.
More than 80 countries have laws that ban the procedure or allow it to be prosecuted, according to a World Bank study cited earlier this year by the United Nations Population Fund. They include South Africa, Iran, India and Ethiopia.
“No religious text promotes or condones female genital mutilation,” the UNFPA report states, adding that there is no benefit to it.
In the long term, the practice can cause urinary tract infections, menstrual problems, pain, decreased sexual satisfaction and birth complications, as well as depression, low self-esteem and post-traumatic stress disorder.
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Pronczuk reported from Dakar, Senegal.
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