Mariama Jobarteh, our 2025 Impact West Africa Fellow, examines the highly contested debate over female genital mutilation (FGM) in The Gambia — a practice deeply rooted in culture and religion. Although The Gambia criminalized FGM in 2015, enforcement has historically been weak, and recent high-profile convictions sparked backlash that led some political and religious leaders to challenge the ban. In 2024, the National Assembly rejected a bill to repeal the 2015 law, but that decision has since been taken up in the Supreme Court as a constitutional challenge. The divide reflects tensions between legal protections and cultural/religious identities.
The author argues that legal reform alone is not enough: sustainable change must engage communities, religious and cultural leaders, and centre women’s lived experiences so that gender justice can be meaningfully advanced without reinforcing social stigma or resistance.
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