Gambia, Selekunda – Police said three women were charged with the death of a one-month girl who had undergone a female genital mutilation, and police said they were charged in the first such case since they stopped reversing the ban on practice last year.
West African countries banned women from genital cutting in 2015, but the country was shaken by new debates over the practices last year, following the initial prosecution of female cutters. It was the first time that a practice known as circumcision for women has been publicly discussed in many countries.
Ultimately, the Gambian Parliament supported the ban, but many say the practice continues secretly.
The Gambia Police said in a statement released on Wednesday on social media under the ban, the Women (Amendment) Act 2015, three women were indicted on Tuesday. One woman faces life sentence, while the other two have been charged as accomplices.
“Preliminary findings are said to have been exposed to circumcision and later developed severe bleeding,” police said in another statement released Sunday after the infant's death. “She was rushed to Maternal and Child Health Hospital in Bungdun, where she was declared dead upon arrival.”
The United Nations estimates that approximately 75% of Gambian women are exposed to younger girls to procedures known in their initial FGM, which involves partial or complete removal of the girls' external genitals. The World Health Organization says it is a form of torture.
According to UN estimates, more than 200 million women and girls around the world are FGM survivors, with most women in sub-Saharan Africa surviving. Over the past eight years alone, around 30 million women have been cut worldwide, most of which have left not only Africa, but also Asian and Middle Eastern women, UNICEF said last year.
Procedures usually carried out by older women and traditional community practitioners are often done with tools such as razor blades and can lead to serious bleeding, death and complications in life, including childbirth.
Proceedings argue that the cutting is rooted in Gambian culture and the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad. The religious conservatives behind the campaign to reverse the ban were described as “one of the virtues of Islam.” People of FGM said its supporters were trying to cut women's rights in the name of tradition.
Emmanuel Daniel Joff, chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, called the incident a national wake-up call, adding that “our work is clear: we are enforcing it completely and fairly without fear or favor.”
Civil society groups have expressed “sadness and anger” over the death of a month-old girl.
“Not only does justice have to be done, it has to be done to send a strong message that the rights and lives of Gambian girls cannot be negotiated,” Banjul-based Edward Francis Small Centre for Rights and Justice said in a statement.
However, collectively involved citizens have called on the Gambian government to stop targeting female exteriorists.
“The Gambians have consistently expressed their opposition to the ban through a variety of legal means and have directed elected lawmakers to abolish the above ban,” they said in a statement.