Gambian lawmakers have rejected a invoice searching for to overturn a 2015 ban on feminine genital mutilation (FGM).
Parliament Speaker Fabakary Tombong Jatta stated a majority of lawmakers voted to reject the invoice even earlier than its third and closing studying later this month.
Rights teams and the United Nations have urged lawmakers to dam the invoice, which was launched in March underneath strain from some Muslim clerics.
The Gambia is among the many 10 international locations with the best charges of feminine genital mutilation, with 73% of ladies and ladies aged 15 to 49 having undergone the process.
The draft legislation proposed by Almameh Gibba was rejected after MPs voted towards all its proposed provisions.
Ms Jatta stated the invoice had been “rejected and the legislative course of exhausted” and subsequently couldn’t proceed to 3rd studying.
The invoice was authorised by a majority of lawmakers when it was launched in March, elevating the prospect of The Gambia turning into the primary nation to overturn a ban on the observe.
In essentially the most extreme type of the process, after the delicate clitoris is eliminated, the genitals are lower and sewn shut, leaving the lady unable to carry out or get pleasure from intercourse.
The 2015 ban imposes fines and as much as three years in jail on perpetrators, or life imprisonment if the woman’s demise outcomes.
Feminine genital mutilation is banned in additional than 70 international locations around the globe, nevertheless it nonetheless happens in Muslim-majority international locations reminiscent of The Gambia.
Rights foyer group ActionAid warned that any transfer to elevate the ban would jeopardize Gambia’s progress in tackling violence towards girls and ladies.
“As activists we battle tooth and nail to battle for a ban and finish to FGM/C,” stated Binta Ceesay, Girls’s Rights Supervisor at ActionAid Gambia.
In response to the United Nations, greater than 230 million women and girls worldwide have undergone feminine genital mutilation.
