FGM violates the right of women and girls to the highest attainable standard of health, the right to physical integrity, and life. Credit: Shutterstock

By Juliana Nnoko
Jan 28 2026 (IPS)

Gambia’s Supreme Court is considering whether a law protecting women and girls from female genital mutilation (FGM) is constitutional. The practice, common in Gambia, often involves forcibly restraining girls while parts of their genitals are cut, sometimes with the wound sewn shut.

FGM constitutes torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment under international human rights law. It can result in death or life long health problems such as infections, fetal deaths, obstetric complications, and psychological effects. Now the Supreme Court will decide whether women and girls will continue to be protected from such harmful practices.

Religious leaders and a member of parliament failed to get parliament to overturn Gambia’s 2015 FGM ban in 2024. They have taken their fight all the way to the Supreme Court, contending that the ban violates constitutional rights to cultural and religious freedom. This effort isn’t just a setback for one small West African country—it’s part of a global backlash against women’s rights that threatens to unravel decades of progress protecting women and girls from a widespread form of gender-based violence.

There’s no medical justification for FGM, according to the World Health Organization. Medicalization of FGM, in which the procedure is carried out by health personnel, does not reduce the violation of human rights. Regardless of where and by whom it is performed, FGM is never safe.

There's no medical justification for FGM, according to the World Health Organization. Medicalization of FGM, in which the procedure is carried out by health personnel, does not reduce the violation of human rights. Regardless of where and by whom it is performed, FGM is never safe. Nonetheless, over 230 million girls and women have undergone FGM, with about 63 percent of these survivors (144 million) in Africa

Nonetheless, over 230 million girls and women have undergone FGM, with about 63 percent of these survivors (144 million) in Africa. In Gambia in 2020, nearly three-quarters of women and girls between 15 and 49 reported having the procedure, with almost two-thirds cut before age 5. This isn’t an abstract human rights issue—it’s a public health crisis affecting millions of women and girls and the consequences follow them for life.

FGM violates the right of women and girls to the highest attainable standard of health, the right to physical integrity, and life. Women and girls who have experienced FGM face complications during childbirth, chronic infections, psychological trauma, and in some cases, death. In August 2025, a one-month-old baby girl bled to death after FGM was performed on her.

The government’s 2015 ban was a breakthrough. Gambia joined dozens of countries recognizing that FGM violates fundamental human rights, the rights to health, bodily integrity, and freedom from torture. The government even adopted a national strategy to eliminate the practice entirely by 2030, aligning with global Sustainable Development Goals. The government’s implementation of the ban and the strategy has been slow and now faced with challenges.

The Supreme Court is hearing arguments that should chill anyone who cares about human rights. Media reported that one witness, a prominent Muslim leader, attempted to justify the violence against women and girls, saying that “female circumcision” is part of Islam and isn’t harmful. When asked about two babies who died from the procedure, he replied: “We are Muslims and if someone dies, it’s God’s will.” He went on to say that the practice’s benefit is reducing women’s sexual desire, “which could be a problem for men.”

The plaintiffs’ courtroom arguments don’t hold up to scrutiny. There’s no requirement for FGM in Sharia (Islamic law). It’s not part of the Sunna (Prophetic traditions) or considered an honorable act. The practice predates Islam and isn’t universal among Muslims—it’s a cultural practice that some communities have incorrectly linked to faith.

Moreover, framing FGM as a constitutional right to religious freedom is misleading. The Gambian constitution restricts rights, including religious or cultural, that impinge on other people’s fundamental rights and freedoms, such as to life, from torture or inhuman treatment, and nondiscrimination.

Gambian organizations, including the Network Against Gender Base Violence and Women in Liberation and Leadership (WILL), are fighting this case. Civil society organizations mobilized survivors, community leaders, and women’s groups across the country to defeat efforts to repeal the law in Parliament in 2024. The opposition to the case is coming from women and girls whose lives literally depend on maintaining these protections.

“This is happening despite individuals being harassed, particularly on social media, for speaking out against the case creating an atmosphere where many survivors, including women’s rights defenders, are now choosing to be silent,” said Fatou Baleh, an anti-FGM activist, FGM survivor, and founder of WILL.

Gambia has ratified the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, its Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa (Maputo Protocol), and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child. Article 5 (b) of the Maputo Protocol explicitly prohibits all forms of FGM and medicalization of the practice.

In July 2025, the government signed the African Union Convention on Ending Violence Against Women, which was adopted earlier that year, reaffirming its commitment to adopt and enforce legal measures to prevent harmful practices and protect survivors, reinforcing the constitutional duty to uphold the FGM ban.

The health and well-being of girls and women in Gambia now rests with the Supreme Court. However the court rules, the government needs to invest in ending FGM through comprehensive education programs, community-led initiatives, strong enforcement of existing laws, and medical and psychological support for survivors to protect hundreds of thousands of women and girls’ lives.

Juliana Nnoko is a senior women’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch.

Fatou Bensouda, Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court is also a Gambian national. Credit: UN Photo/Manuel Elias.

By Lindah Mogeni
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 8 2016 (IPS)

The International Criminal Court (ICC) may have had a small reprieve this week from a string of African withdrawals, with Gambia’s newly elected President Adama Barrow telling various media outlets that there is no need for Gambia to leave the court.

Gambia, alongside Burundi and South Africa, was one of three African countries to announce it’s withdrawal from the ICC this year, with Namibia and Kenya rumoured to be close in heel.

Gambia’s questionable human rights record during outgoing President Yahya Jammeh’s twenty two year rule – may have put the West African country on the court’s radar. However under Jammeh’s leadership Gambia argued the reason for the withdrawal was that the ICC was institutionally prejudiced against people of colour, especially Africans. The withdrawal also followed Gambia’s repeated unsuccessful appeals for the Court to hold the European Union accountable for the deaths of thousands of African migrants who tried to cross over to its shores.

However, President-elect Barrow has praised the ICC for advocating good governance – which he intends for Gambia.

Addressing the UN General Assembly in September, Burundi’s Foreign Minister, Alain Nyamitwe, claimed that there are “politically motivated reasons which have pushed the ICC to act on African cases.”

Significantly, the ICC had announced its plan, in April, to launch an investigation into several human rights violations surrounding the upcoming elections and President Pierre Nkurunziza’s unconstitutional claim to remain in power for another term in Burundi.

South Africa’s notice of withdrawal from the ICC was considered a particular blow to the Court, since South Africa was one of the court’s founding members and among its strongest supporters.

The withdrawal came after South Africa failed to arrest Sudanese president Omar Al-Bashir, who had been indicted by the ICC, when he visited South Africa to attend the 2015 African Union (AU) Summit. As a result, the ICC accused South Africa of not complying with cooperation procedures – which seemingly fractured their relationship.

UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, told the UN Security Council that the ICC departures could “send a wrong message on these countries’ commitment to justice.”

Some members of the AU have been calling for an exodus from the ICC since tensions with the Court first began in 2009 after the ICC issued an arrest warrant for President Omar Al-Bashir.

However, there is no consensus in the AU to leave the ICC. Several African countries, including Zambia, Botswana, Tanzania, Malawi, Sierra Leone, Senegal and Nigeria have opposed withdrawal from the Court.

The perception that the ICC is biased towards Africa has intensified over the past few years.

The UN’s establishment of temporary tribunals in the 1990s for war crimes in Rwanda and Yugoslavia acted as roadmaps for the launch of the ICC in July 2002.

The Court’s primary objective was to serve as a permanent international tribunal tasked with conducting investigations and prosecuting perpetrators of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Africa represents the largest regional grouping of countries that are parties to the ICC, with 34 African nations having ratified the treaty, the Rome Statute, which established the court.

Since the court’s formation 14 years ago, 9 out of 10 of its active cases have been against nationals of African countries.

These include, Central African Republic, Mali, Ivory Coast, Libya, Kenya, Sudan (Darfur), Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. This is the main reason why the ICC is accused of selective justice.

There are three ways through which a case can be brought forth to the ICC. The first is via submissions by individual governments of the countries concerned, as was the case with Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic. The second is via self-initiated interventions by the ICC Chief Prosecutor, as was the case with Kenya and Ivory Coast. The third is via a UN Security Council referral, as was the case with Sudan and Libya – both of which are not parties to the ICC.

Evidently, the ICC has self-intervened in only two African cases. The other African cases have all come to the ICC through referrals by the countries themselves or by the UN Security Council.

Regardless of the fact that there have been cases before the ICC that were self-referred by the relevant African countries themselves, “a concern persists that the ICC appears to be targeting Africa in pursuit of political expediency,” said South Africa’s Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng in a speech addressing the Africa Legal Aid Conference (AFLA) in 2014.

“The reality is that gross human rights violations have taken place and continue to take place beyond the borders of Africa and yet, so say the critics of the ICC, there does not seem to be as much enthusiasm to deal with those atrocities as is the case with those committed in the African continent” said Mogoeng.

ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, a Gambian national, said, “with due respect, what offends me most when I hear criticisms about the so-called African bias is how quick we are to focus on the words and propaganda of a few powerful, influential individuals and to forget about the millions of anonymous people that suffer from these crimes,” said at an ICC Open Forum in 2012.

The greatest affront to victims of war crimes and crimes against humanity is to “see those powerful individuals responsible for their sufferings trying to portray themselves as the victims of a ‘pro‐Western’, ‘anti‐African’ Court…the ICC was established as a shield for the powerless not a club for the powerful,” said Bensouda.

Universality and equality before the law is one of the core ideals of the ICC. However, 3 permanent members of the UN Security Council- United States, Russia and China – are not state parties to the ICC. This has fuelled the perception that the ICC is not impartial and is essentially a ‘third world court’.

In January this year, ICC Prosecutor Bensouda opened the court’s first formal investigation outside Africa, into Georgia, for war crimes committed during the 2008 Georgia-Russia war.

Currently the ICC is examining a situation in Gabon, referred to the court by the government of Gabon, as well as situations outside Africa – including Colombia, Palestine, Afghanistan, alleged war crimes by British soldiers in Iraq and by Ukrainian separatist and Russian forces in Ukraine.

“Pulling out of the ICC is not the solution, we should be working towards fixing the court,” said Botswana’s Foreign Minister Pelomoni Venson-Moitoi.

Migrants looking down from the mountain behind the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in Morocco. Credit: Andrea Pettrachin/IPS

By Andrea Pettrachin
CEUTA, Sep 4 2015 (IPS)

In the middle of the mountains behind the border fence of Ceuta, the Spanish enclave in Morocco, and eight kilometres from the nearest Moroccan village of Fnideq, an uncertain number of migrants live in the woods. No one knows exactly how many they are but charity workers in Melilla, Spain’s other enclave in Morocco, say they could be in their thousands.

Ceuta is one of the main (and few) ‘doors’ leading from northern Africa to the territory of the European Union, and is a ’door’ that has been closed since the end of the 1990s, when the Spanish authorities started to build a tripe six-metre fence topped with barbed wire that surrounds the whole enclave, as in Melilla.

In the past, those waiting in the mountains for their turn to try to reach Spain had been able to build something resembling a normal life. They put up tents and at least were able to sleep relatively peacefully at night.Today, the migrants are forced to remain mostly hidden in small groups among the trees or in small caverns, and they know that all attempts to pass the Spanish border are almost certain to fail and end up with arrest by the Moroccan authorities

That all ended after 2012, when the Moroccan police started to burn down the camps and periodically sweep the mountainside, arresting any migrants they found, charged with having illegally entered the country.

These actions were the result of agreements between the Moroccan and Spanish governments, after Spain had asked Morocco to control migration flows.

The most tragic raid so far by the Moroccan police took place last year on Gurugu Mountain which looks down on Melilla. Five migrants were killed, 40 wounded and 400 removed to a desert area on the border with Algeria. According to the migrants, the wounded were not cured and were left to their own destiny.

Today, the migrants are forced to remain mostly hidden in small groups among the trees or in small caverns, and they know that all attempts to pass the Spanish border are almost certain to fail and end up with arrest by the Moroccan authorities.

They live, in their words, “like animals” and when speaking with outsiders are clearly ashamed by their condition, apologising for being dirty and badly-dressed.

The first thing many of them tell you in French is that they are students and that before having to leave their countries they were studying mathematics, economics or engineering at university.

Many of them are from Guinea, one of the countries most seriously affected by the Ebola epidemic, others come from Cote d’Ivoire, Gambia, Mali, Burkina Faso, all countries characterised by political turmoil of various types.

All of them have been forced to live in these woods for months or even years, waiting for their chance to pass the border fence.

The statistics show that some of them will certainly die in their attempts to reach Spain – either on the heavily fortified fences which encircle the enclaves or out at sea in a small boat or trying to swim to a Spanish beach.

Some of them will finally make it to Spain, perhaps after five or six failed attempts. In that case they will have overcome the first hurdle, escaping the “push-back operations” by the Spanish Guardia Civil, but they will still face the possibility of forced repatriation, particularly if they come from countries with which Spain has a repatriation agreement.

Many of them, however, will finally give up and decide to remain somewhere in Morocco, destined to a life of continuous uncertainty due to their irregular position in the country. You can meet them and listen to their stories in the main Moroccan cities, especially in the north. In most cases, they had escaped death in their attempts to reach Spain and do not want to risk their lives any longer.

Meanwhile a report on ‘Refugee Persons in Spain and Europe” published at the end of May by the non-governmental Spanish Commission for Refugees (CEAR), denounces how sub-Saharan migrants are dissuaded from seeking asylum in Spain, even if coming from countries in conflict such as Mali, Democratic Republic of Congo or Somalia, once they realise that they are likely to be forced to remain for months in a Centre for Temporary Residence of Immigrants (CETI) in Ceuta or Melilla.

In Melilla, for example, those who apply for asylum cannot leave the enclave until a decision has been taken on their application. Unlike Syrian refugees whose application takes no more than two months, CEAR said the average time to reach a decision for sub-Saharan Africans is one and a half years.

The CEAR report is only one of a long list of recent criticisms of the Spanish government’s migration policies from numerous NGOs and international organisations.

The main target of these criticisms has been the Security Law (Ley de Seguridad Ciudadana) passed this year by the Spanish Parliament with only the votes of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s Popular Party. The aim was to give legal cover to the so called devoluciones en caliente, the “push-back operations” against migrants carried out by the Spanish frontier authorities in Ceuta and Melilla in violation of international and European law.

On the Spanish mainland, said the CEAR report, migrant’s right of asylum is seriously undermined by the bureaucratic lengths of application procedures and the political choices of the Spanish authorities.

Calls from CEAR and other NGOs to end “push-back operations” seem very unlikely to be taken into consideration soon by the Spanish government and Parliament, in view of the general elections later this year.

Edited by Phil Harris   

Circumcisers in the Gambia publicly declaring that they have abandoned the practice of FGM. Credit: Saikou Jammeh/IPS

By Saikou Jammeh
BANJUL, Jul 13 2014 (IPS)

Women’s rights activists in the Gambia are insisting that more than 30 years of campaigning to raise awareness should be sufficient to move the government to outlaw female genital mutilation (FMG).

The practice remains widespread in this tiny West African country of 1.8 million people, but rights activists believe that their campaign has now reached the tipping point.

Two years ago, GAMCOTRAP, an apolitical non-governmental organisation (NGO) committed to the promotion and protection of women and girl children’s political, social, sexual, reproductive health and educational rights in The Gambia, and one of the groups behind the anti-FGM campaign, sponsored a draft bill which has been subjected to wide stakeholder consultations.

Several previous attempts to legislate against FGM have failed, with no fewer than three pro-women laws having had clauses on FGM removed from draft bills. But activists now appear determined to make the final push and hope that when introduced this time round, the bill will go through.“We’ve caused lots of suffering to our women ... if my grandparents had known what I know today, they would not have circumcised anyone. Ignorance was the problem” – former circumciser Babung Sidibeh

The time has now come for final action, says Amie Bensouda, legal consultant for the draft bill. “There can be no half measures. The law has to be clear. It’s proposed by the law that FGM in all its forms is prohibited. This discussion cannot go on forever. The government should do what is right.”

“The campaign has reached its climax,” Dr Isatou Touray, executive director of GAMCOTRAP, told IPS. “A lot of work has been done. I am hopeful of having a law because women are calling for it, men are calling for it. I know there are pockets of resistance but that’s always the case when it comes to women’s issues.”

“In 2010, we organised a workshop for the National Assembly,” she continued. “They made a declaration, pledging to support any bill that criminalises FGM. I am happy to report that, since 2007, more than 128 circumcisers and 900 communities have abandoned the practice. This trend will continue to grow.”

Seventy-eight percent of Gambian women undergo FGM as a ‘rite of passage’. However, after more than three decades of the anti-FGM campaign in Gambia, a wind of change is blowing, sweeping even conservative rural communities.

Sustained awareness-raising programmes have resulted in public declarations of abandonment of FGM by hundreds of circumcisers. Babung Sidibeh, custodian of the tradition in her native Janjanbureh, the provincial capital of Central River Region, 196 kilometres from Banjul, was one of them. The old woman assumed the role after the death of her parents, but she has since “dropped the knife”, as no longer practising FGM is known here.

Sidibeh did so after receiving training in reproductive health and women’s rights. “Soon after we circumcised our children in 2011,” she told IPS, “Gamcotrap invited me for training. I was exposed to the harm we’ve been doing to our fellow women. If I had known that before what I know today, I would never have circumcised anyone.”

With a tinge of remorse, she added: “We’ve caused lots of suffering to our women. That’s why I told you that if my grandparents had known what I know today, they would not have circumcised anyone. Ignorance was the problem.”

Mrs Camara-Touray, a senior public health worker at the country’s heath ministry confirmed to IPS that her ministry has since taken a more proactive role on FGM.

She explained: “The ministry has created an FGM complication register. We’ve also trained nurses on FGM. Until recently, when you asked most health workers about the complications that can arise with FMG, they would say it has no complications. That’s because they were not trained. Since 2011, we’ve changed our curriculum to include these complications. After we put the register in place, within three months, we’d go to a region and see that hundreds of complications due to FGM had been recorded.”

In March, Gamcotrap organised a regional religious dialogue that sought to de-link FGM from Islam. Touray said that the workshop was a prelude to the introduction of the proposed law in parliament.

“Islamic scholars were brought together from Mali, Guinea, Mauritania and Gambia,” she told IPS. “We had a constructive debate and it was overwhelmingly accepted that FGM is not an Islamic injunction, it’s a cultural practice. It was recommended that a specific law should be passed and a declaration was made to that effect.”

However, there is resistance in some quarters. An influential group of Islamic scholars, backed by the leadership of the Supreme Islamic Council, continue to maintain that FGM is a religious injunction.

With a large following and having the ears of the politicians, these clerics have in recent times also intensified their pro-FGM campaign.

“It will be a big mistake if they legislate against FGM,” Ebrima Jarjue, an executive member of the Supreme Islamic Council, told IPS.

“Our religion says we cut just small. We should be allowed to practise our religion. If some people are doing it and doing it bad, let them stop it. Let them go and learn how to do it. If circumcising the girl child when she’s young is causing problems, then let’s wait until she grows up. That’s what used to happen.”

Meanwhile, the Women’s Bureau, the implementing arm of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, is hesitant about legislating against FGM.

“As far FGM is concerned, the position of the Women’s Bureau is that there’s need for more sensitisation and dialogue to push the course forward,” Neneh Touray, information and communication officer of the Women’s Bureau, told IPS. She declined to comment on whether the bureau thought that the bill was premature.

By David Kode
JOHANNESBURG, Sep 23 2013 (Columnist Service)

Last July marked 19 years of Gambian President Yahya Jammeh’s inordinately long rule. His legacy during this time is to mark his country as one of the most unapologetically repressive states in Africa.

In June, he told a public gathering he would never compromise on homosexuality. “Those talking about human rights, and saying that preventing homosexuality is a violation of human rights, I have one message for them: let them go and burn their tails in hell.”

Gambia also scores dismally on the well-respected Ibrahim Index of African Governance, just below Swaziland, one of the last remaining totalitarian monarchies in the world. Journalists and human rights defenders are under particular pressure. Many are afraid of being locked up on trumped-up charges for criticising the government’s wanton ways.

On Jul. 3, Gambia’s Information and Communications Act was amended to create new offences including “inciting dissatisfaction” and “making derogatory statements against government officials”, to deter the media and activists from publicly criticising the president and his cronies.

The penalties are severe. Circulating “false information” carries a stiff sentence of 15 years in jail and hefty fines of the equivalent of 87,000 dollars

The above amendment comes on the heels of a recent revision of the country’s Criminal Code which further reinforces the authority of government over citizens. Those found guilty of providing “false information” to a public servant or state authority can be penalised with a fine of 1,500 dollars or sentenced to five years in prison.

The implications are that any government official can make a judgement call on information they consider ‘false’ and take individuals to court on the basis of such information.

These recent actions are a reflection of a broader trend in which the government consistently threatens, intimidates and harasses journalists, dissenters and human rights defenders. Attacks on journalists and media outlets increased drastically in August 2012 in the wake of the execution of nine prisoners following public pronouncements by President Jammeh, who came to power through a coup in July 1994.

In a televised address, he informed Gambians in August 2012 that “all the death sentences would have been carried out to the letter – there is no way my government will allow 99 percent of the population to be held ransom by criminals.”

The executions were the first of their kind in over three decades and they were preceded by public announcements made by the president that all inmates on death row would be summarily executed.

Following pressure from the international community after the executions, the president issued a moratorium, halting further action on condition that the crime rate in the country did not increase.

There are serious concerns that some of those on death row and those executed were convicted on fictitious and politically-motivated charges.

Several national and international news agencies operating in the country that reported on and criticised the executions were targeted during this period. On Sept. 15, 2012, The Standard and Daily News newspapers were arbitrarily banned for apparently publishing stories critical of the executions. In August 2012 Teranga FM, an independent radio station, was shut down after it was warned to desist from broadcasting newspaper publications in local languages.

Journalists are increasingly being forced to resort to self-censorship as critical reporting – more often than not – elicits a backlash from government. In most cases, groups working on human rights issues have had to close down completely or ‘self-censor’ public reports on the state of human rights to avoid government reprisals.

Members and partners have told CIVICUS, the global civil society alliance, that they are scared to speak out lest they face the wrath of a state that might trump up ways and means of persecuting them. Some journalists critical of the government have fled the country to avoid persecution and those that have remained are regularly targeted by the authorities.

Ironically, the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights (ACHPR) is on Gambian soil, but the government seems to be oblivious to its commitments to regional and international human rights frameworks as it clamps down on critical voices in the media.

It is quite obvious that human rights concerns are only discussed in the Gambia when the ACHPR is in session. The authorities continue to use a variety of strategies, including judicial harassment, intimidation, threats, and repressive laws, to crack down on the media and silence those who question human rights violations.

The international community and African leaders in particular need to take action to halt the downward spiral of abuses of human rights and freedom of expression while Gambia continues to host the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights.

Jammeh needs to be held to account – or face serious consequences if he is not. The next session of the Commission is scheduled for October-November 2013. It is increasingly becoming a joke.

(END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

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