As Gambia takes final stand on female genital cutting, an invisible mutilation

Hour by hour, Gambia – a minute, majority Muslim nation – is engulfed in a national debate about female genital cutting, widely known as female genital mutilation (FGM). Repeatedly heated discussions were prompted through a bill that would repeal the moratorium on curtailment in the country thus making The Gambia the first country in the world to roll back any such policy.

In March, a majority of members of Parliament voted to pass the bill. The closest state committee held hearings with doctors, activists and religious scholars before releasing a document earlier this year suggesting the ban adopted in 2015 is correct. A final vote is scheduled for July 24, although the bill’s fate may be decided sooner.

While there is debate over the practice throughout the Gambia, women are yet to be trimmed, without punishment for those who cut them, according to activists and administrative officials.

For Fatou, that incident happened last October when she learned that her daughter, Nyimsin, had been fired from her job for the federal government and its private individuals. Activists and government officials say Fatou’s story underscores the difficulties of achieving justice for any such crimes and highlights the increasingly challenging conditions under which the practice is carried out, especially if the ban is overturned.

When Fatou asked her four-year-old daughter what happened to her, Nyimsin said, “I was hurt by a razor blade.”

“How?” Fatou pressed her daughter. “Children don’t play with razor blades. … What were you doing?”

“It wasn’t me,” she remembered her daughter declaring while sitting in Fatou’s lap. “It was my aunt and my great aunt,” said Nimsin, whom The Washington Post is identifying by her last name to protect her privacy. “They brought a woman and they took me to the backyard, spread my legs and cut my vagina.”

When Fatou, now 33, and her younger sister Sireh Saho were growing up, they never thought about getting trim. But when Sirreh was in elementary school, she learned about the potential side effects of FGM, including infection, severe pain, scarring, infertility and loss of recreation.

Sirreh, now 29 and the more rebellious of the two, started talking about the dangers and, then, the surprise of learning her mother was allowed to go to the toilet and trim in the present. about. Fatou, who did not remember about his joy. After being curvy as a kid, I started quietly thinking about applying it as a suave adult.

In the week that Fatou was pregnant with Nyimsin, she had heard how FGM had contributed to a relative’s near-death during childbirth. Fatou, an unmarried mother who works as a librarian, was recommended to a friend after years of struggle with completely sealing her vaginal opening, the ultimate form of FGM, and questions Did whether slicing was responsible for the middle distance. The kind of intimacy she saw in movies and what she and her friends experienced.

She was still in her fitness center bed at the time of her delivery when her then-husband’s aunts came to check on Nyimsin, and one made a disparaging comment about how she might get cut once she did.

Fatou remembered having to muster the strength to sit on the mattress to make sure her level was cloud-free. “My child will not go through this,” she said sternly. “Don’t you dare think about it.”

The current debate in Gambia over FGM began in August, with three women convicted of engaging in the practice. He was the first person to be prosecuted after the ban was imposed and faced a possible prison sentence of up to 3 years or a fine of approximately $740.

Supporters of the moratorium celebrated because it felt like the law had finally been put into effect.

After this came the reaction. Abdul Fatty, one of Gambia’s greatest imams, paid the women’s fine, declaring that the practice was taught by the Prophet Muhammad. Fatty Nearest launched a marketing campaign to destigmatize the situation. (Many Muslim leaders have condemned the practice, and in many Muslim-majority countries, it is not common.)

Fatou, on a weeklong visit to neighboring Senegal, remained glued to the information on her telephone, she said. She posted a WhatsApp story declaring that she wanted the women to be jailed.

She did not know that her daughter had already been murdered in Gambia.

When Fatou found out what was done to her daughter, her first name was that of her sister. Sirreh is at home with a busy schedule, Fatou said, which is the closest he has come to combining what he refers to as The Gambia’s form of support. An operator recommended him to go to the upcoming police station. Fatou was satisfied that her husband’s men were responsible and wanted to bury the matter.

The women paid for a taxi to bring the police to their ex-husband’s area. He demanded to understand why they were there.

“You know exactly why the police are here,” he recalls her telling him.

She looked at him in disbelief, she said, as if she couldn’t imagine that he had called the police on such a matter, and asked: “Why are you acting like you’re not Muslim?” (He did not respond to requests for comment.)

At the police station on the ensuing occasion, Fatou and Sireh said that they were outnumbered by her ex-husband’s men, who abused and shouted at them. Her ex-husband said he had given permission for it.

The stone pelting policemen advised them to come again at some other time.

The sisters knew they needed support. A mutual good friend connected them with Fatou Baldeh, a Gambian activist known worldwide as anti-FGM.

Baldeh said in an interview that Fatou Sahou’s story reflects the truth that it is usually old people, not old people, who decide whether women will be thin. His decision to pursue a criminal case was unusual, Baldeh said.

When Baldeh joined the sisters again at the police station on Please Watch Monday, it was clear how tough the fight could be.

A supervisory officer examined Nyimsin and announced that he was “fine,” Baldeh said. According to Baldeh and Fatou, the officer said he had received orders not to pursue such cases because of the ongoing debate across the country.

Finally, a young officer named Sarata Saidikhan accompanied the women to the health center, where the women said a physician showed that Nyimsin had undergone “Type 1”, which comes down to ablation or complete eradication of the clitoris. .

When asked about the case, Saidikhan said in an interview that the report on the case had been transferred to the capital, Banjul, about 16 miles away, and declined to answer follow-up questions. At police headquarters in Banjul, instructions to publish the news have been given to a press officer, who did not have details about the case.

Beyond the previous day, Fatou and Sireh were in the target audience as Baldeh announced the findings of her group, Girls in Liberation and Management, prepared in the context of the parliamentary debate on FGM. Urging the ban to be maintained, Baldeh described deaths allegedly caused by slicing.

Fatou felt herself rising up smartly and her tears began to fall. “What if my baby died and I wasn’t around?” Later he remembered thinking, as unused tears fell. “What would they have told me?”

For now, Fatou’s case appears to be on hold, with court dates over the next few months canceled and pleas filed with the police.

Imam Faty, who promoted the repeal of the stop, made it seem as if it was a follow-up to Fatou’s story in a sermon earlier this year, saying a woman who takes her husband to court should be “ashamed.” When Fatty intertwines his story with that of a “good woman” who refused to take her husband to court, even after he beat her so badly that she lost four teeth.

Fatou has attempted to get rid of the drive and forget the stares she occasionally receives. Rather, she is an expert in her daughter’s activities. She knows how much Nyimsin loves her father and has heard him say that he hopes he will not “shut down”. However Fatou also believes that her daughter deserves justice and that the law should be enforced – for the sake of all Gambian women.

Usually, she prays that Nyimsin doesn’t have to go through the headaches that a lot of girls go through. But when headaches hit, Fatou said, she will be there for her daughter and they will face them together.

Ramatouli Jawo contributed to this document.