SOMA, Gambia – When Metta, a mother of six from rural Gambia, learned that lawmakers were considering reversing the country’s ban on female genital mutilationa centuries-old practice she carried out as a child and now fiercely opposed, she was determined to make her voice heard.
She packed her bags and boarded a bus to Gambia’s capital, Banjul, to join dozens of women protesting outside parliament in the mostly Muslim West African nation of less than 3 million people.
“I was there with a banner,” she told the Associated Press. “As soon as we received the news that the ban was upheld, we danced and cried.”
The Gambia was for months shaken by a heated debate over female genital mutilationor FGM, a cultural rite rooted in concepts of sexual purity and control of women. It was the first time the practice – also known as female circumcision and banned in many countries – was discussed publicly. Reversing it would have been a global first.
Ultimately, lawmakers killed the proposal, rejecting all its clauses and preventing a final vote on the bill on July 16. Human rights groups declared victory, but the debate aroused deep anguish among women’s activists.
And although the world’s attention has focused on the legislative process, the real battle continues – fought silently by people like Metta, far from the chambers of parliament and in rural areas where activists say FGM is still prevalent and remains a highly sensitive topic.
Women in rural Gambia – even those like Metta, who applauded before parliament – are reluctant to talk about cuts, fearing a backlash. Some who spoke out against the practice said they had received hateful messages. When speaking to the AP, the women did not reveal their full names for fear of reprisal.
Local activists are walking a fine line. After agreeing to give the AP full access to an awareness meeting in the village, they withdrew the decision, saying the presence of foreign journalists could compromise their efforts.
The challenges are surprising. The United Nations estimates that about 75% of women in The Gambia were subjected, as young women, to FGM, which includes the partial or total removal of a girl’s external genitals. The World Health Organization says it is a form of torture.
The procedure, typically performed by elderly women or practitioners from traditional communities, is often carried out with tools such as razor blades and can cause severe bleeding, death, and complications later in lifeincluding during childbirth.
More than 200 million women and girls around the world are FGM survivors, most of them in sub-Saharan Africa, according to UN estimates. Just in the last eight years, around 30 million women around the world have been cut, most of them in Africa, but also in Asia and the Middle East, UNICEF said in March.
In 2015, Gambia’s former leader Yahya Jammeh — now in exile and accused of human rights violations — unexpectedly banned the cutting, without giving explanations.
However, the practice continued. The first prosecutions took place only last year, when three women were convicted of taking their daughters to be dismembered, provoking a negative reaction to the ban and triggering debate.
Gambian authorities did not respond to a request for comment on the matter.
Proponents of the ban have argued that the cut is rooted in Gambian culture and the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad. Religious conservatives behind the campaign to reverse the ban described the cut as “one of the virtues of Islam”.
Those against FGM said his supporters seek to restrict women’s rights in the name of tradition.
Habibou Tamba, a 37-year-old local activist who took part in the rally in front of parliament, said a prominent member of the community – whom he did not identify – sent him a message afterwards, accusing him of serving the interests of the West.
“We will never be subjected to Western ideology,” said the message, seen by AP. She added: “This is the beginning of the war.”
But Tamba says that for him, the protests were about women’s right to live free from pain, not Western values.
At the awareness meeting, held in a local government office, activists spoke to a few dozen women from neighboring villages about the dangers of child marriage and FGM. On the wall, they projected images of deformed female genitals to explain possible health complications from cutting.
With each photo, the women in the room gasped in shock and disgust. But not everyone was convinced.
“I went through FGM, but nothing happened to me,” said one woman. “I have more than five children and have never had any complications.”
“It is our culture and it is also part of the prophet’s teachings,” she said, and added that after the ban was introduced, she took her daughter away from her village to be cut in secret.
Another woman said the ban “violated our rights as Muslim women”. Not a single woman at the meeting spoke in support of the ban.
Rabietou, a 42-year-old mother of six, was outside breastfeeding her youngest daughter, 7-month-old Fatima.
“I came here because of her,” she said, cradling her baby.
Rabietou’s eldest daughter, Aminata, 26, also attended. The two gathered women from their village to attend the meeting. Rabietou told how she was cut off by a relative when she was a girl and forced to drop out of school and get married at 15.
A year later, she gave birth – in excruciating pain – to Aminata, who also suffered cuts and left school early to get married.
“Nobody told me about the health consequences,” Rabietou said.
As she became more aware of the risks through conversations with activists and other women, she became determined to break the cycle. She said that she will not let Fatima be cut and also advised Aminata not to cut her daughter.
Metta said she was cut when she was 8 years old.
“Nobody told me anything, just that it’s tradition,” she said.
She never discussed what happened with anyone. When activists started organizing meetings in her community, it was hard for her to believe what they were saying. But she has come to the conclusion that it is time to start talking.
The women in her village began sharing their experiences and quickly discovered that they all faced similar struggles: Pain when they were cut. A lot of pain when they were intimate with their husbands. Even more pain when they were giving birth.
In the end, after discussing the matter with their husbands, most decided to stop cutting. None of Metta’s four daughters were cut.
“Before, people said: if you don’t cut your daughter, she won’t listen. She will have no discipline,” Metta said. “But going into the woods and teaching your children discipline are two very different things.”
“I will not let my daughters go through the same pain as me,” she said.
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Associated Press writer Ramatoulie Jawo in Banjul, Gambia, contributed to this report.
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