APA-Banjul (The Gambia) The controversial bill introduced to the Gambian parliament last month seeks to repeal a law criminalising female genital mutilation.
If the law is repealed, The Gambia would become the first country to unban the practice after criminalising it during the reign of former President Yahya Jammeh nine years ago.
Gambian MPs have voted to take the Women’s Amendment Bill to the National Assembly Business Committee for further consultation at the end of a debate to repeal a law criminalising FGM which was banned in 2015.
Following a spirited debate, MPs on Monday voted 42 to 4 for the bill to be referred to the parliament’s business committe which would allow its members to hear both sides of the argument on the practise which is viewed by anti-FGM campaigners as a ‘barbaric act against powerless women and girls’.
Those in favour of the Bill argue that it is both a traditional and religious practice which has been in The Gambia for centuries without offsetting the role of women and girls in society.
Those against a repeal of the ban described the parliamentary debate on the bill as regressive and impignes on the rights of women and girls to determine what’s good for them as stakeholders in Gambian society.
Like in the first reading of the Bill in parliament prominent imams and Islamic clerics and a sea of their veiled female supporters carrying ”FGM is Islamic”placards were met by an unyielding stream of determined anti-GFM activists who made last ditch efforts to convince MPs not to entertain a further discourse around the subject.
However, after it was decided that the bill’s second reading should be suspended due to an inconclusive position on the subject, they referred it to the House’s business committee whose members will scrutinize both sides of the debate before giving their recommendations.
Almameh Gibba, the Foni Kansala MP of the former ruling Alliance for the Patriotic Reorientation and Construction (APRC) of ex president Yahya Jammeh and controversial imam Abdoulie Fatty are the main champions of the quest to unban the practise, insisting that it is sanctioned by Islam.
MP Gibba argued that Private Member’s Bill which brought the ban had confused circumcision for mutilation, the latter experience of which he claimed was not necessarily true of women and girls who went under the knife.
Imam Fatty agreed with Gibba and claimed even two of his own daughters were ”circumcised and not mutilated” in Saudi Arabia. This was meant as a broadside to those who argued that the practice was unIslamic and unbacked by scripture.
The imam who had even paid the fines of practitioners after they were sentenced as offenders, said as a traditional practice steeped in religion, FGM has a place in regulating the physical well being of women and girls.
However, those opposed to the bill such as Gibbie Mballow, Upper Fulladu West’s representative in the national assembly countered that Saudi Arabia, seen globally as the standard bearer for Islamic practices frowns on FGM as irreligious.
Mballow said there is no shred of evidence suggesting that Prophet Mohammed had observed the tendency on his daughters and warned about the medical ramifications on women and girls should the ban be lifted.
To settle the veracity of both claims about Saudi Arabia’s true position on FGM majority leader Bilay G Tunkara, moved a motion for the bill to be referred to the House’s Business Committee.
Its members are expected to embark n nationwide consultations with Islamic clerics, FGM practitioners who still practice under cover, feminists and other activists before the national assembly will vote definitively on the bill.
Meanwhile, Amnesty International has warned that The Gambia risks making ‘regressive steps’ on gender issues including FGM if the Bill seeking to unban the practice is passed by the Gambian parliament.
WN/as/APA
