By Sofia Christensen
BANJUL (Reuters) - For Mariama Jarjou, taking her two daughters to a traditional circumciser when they were 5 and 4 was an act of love - a painful but important ritual that would give them status in their village and make them eligible for marriage.
An uncut woman is a "solima" in the local Mandinka language in Gambia. People will tell her she smells bad, said Jarjou, who is now in her 50s. No one will eat the food she cooks, be her friend or want her as a wife.
Few dared question Gambia's former dictator, Yahya Jammeh, when he outlawed female genital mutilation (FGM) over a decade later, in 2015, saying it was not required by Islam, the country's majority religion. But today, Jarjou strongly supports an attempt in parliament to repeal the ban.
If it succeeds, Gambia, a small West African nation of fewer than 3 million people, would be the first country in the world to make FGM legal again after outlawing it. A final vote is expected on July 24.
"If we stop (FGM), women will suffer ... and our children will not know our culture," Jarjou said.
Banned in over 70 countries worldwide, FGM remains widespread in some African nations and diaspora communities. An estimated 144 million women and girls on the continent have been subjected to the practice, which usually involves the partial or total removal of the external genitalia.
The consequences are lifelong and can include chronic pain; recurring infections; problems with urination, menstruation and childbirth; pain during sexual intercourse and trauma. The World Health Organization says FGM brings no health benefits, only harm.
In Gambia, many people continue to take girls to be cut despite the ban, which authorities have not enforced seriously, anti-FGM campaigners say.
Almost three-quarters of women aged 15 to 49 have undergone the practice, 65% of them when they were younger than 5, according to the latest government health survey in 2019-2020. The figure drops to around 46% for girls under 15, the survey found.
The first FGM convictions came eight years after the ban was introduced, in 2023, when three women were found guilty of cutting eight infant girls. This sparked a public debate about the practice for the first time in Gambia, one that has divided villages and families, and now parliament.
"People are pushing and pulling. Some say it's good; some say it's not," said one of Jarjou's daughters, Jainaba Ndure.
"I think it's not good," Ndure added out of her mother's earshot, saying she feared having children would be painful.
Now 28, Ndure learnt through NGO-led advocacy about the harmful consequences of FGM on women's health. She noted that elders like Jarjou can feel offended by such campaigns.
"They say they are showing us bad pictures," she said, referring to diagrams of women's reproductive organs.
CAREER BOOST
The move to repeal the FGM ban is being spearheaded by two powerful men: Abdoulie Fatty, an influential Muslim cleric, and Almaneh Gibba, an independent lawmaker representing a rural constituency where the practice is widespread.
Fatty publicly defended the three convicted women and paid their fines, urging the government to reconsider the ban in televised speeches and sermons. Gibba, a vocal government critic, introduced the repeal bill in parliament seven months later.
"Enough is enough," Gibba told Reuters. "We will only be free if we repeal it."
The bill's supporters in Gambia have framed their campaign as a backlash against what they describe as Western values being imposed by international donors or former colonial powers, a theme that resonates with many Africans. They also argue that the practice is rooted in Islam, the religion of around 96% of Gambians, though many imams and Islamic scholars dispute this.
For Fatty, a former state imam under Jammeh with no role in the current government, and Gibba, who was previously little known outside his constituency, the debate has been a career boost.
"They can just jump on a very controversial issue, and they will be well-known," said Satang Nabaneh, a Gambian legal scholar.
Both men rejected suggestions their campaign was opportunistic. Fatty said he had no interest in politics, while Gibba said he was upholding religion, culture and tradition.
Rights advocates fear the bill's potential to ignite a wider effort to dismantle protections for women and girls.
"If they succeed today, the next day the bill will be on child marriage, then the next on gender-based violence," said Nafisa Binte Shafique, the UNICEF representative in Gambia.
Rights advocates also worry Gambia's bill could inspire similar legislation in other African countries with FGM bans. Kenya's high court rejected a petition to reverse its ban in 2021.
Gambia's President Adama Barrow, whose election in 2016 ended more than two decades of oppressive rule under Jammeh, said his government would continue enforcing the ban while the bill works its way through parliament. The government does not support FGM but will allow democracy to run its course, Information Minister Ismaila Ceesay told Reuters.
The bill passed its second reading in March with only five out of 53 lawmakers voting against it and one abstaining. Out of five female lawmakers, four voted in favour and one against. None agreed to be interviewed.
But after holding weeks of public hearings, parliament's health and gender affairs committees presented a joint report on July 8 recommending that Gambia maintain the ban.
The report described FGM as a "form of torture" and "discrimination against women", drawing an angry response from Gibba, who said the findings betrayed the trust of Muslims and traditional leaders.
After heated debate, lawmakers adopted the report by a vote of 35 to 17 with two abstentions.
Political analysts said some lawmakers may have been swayed by testimonies from doctors and FGM survivors about the harmful consequences, but it was too soon to tell what the final vote would be.
Gibba remains confident the bill will pass, telling Reuters, “We are asking for freedom of choice.”
Lawmaker Gibbi Mballow opposed the bill from the onset. He said this was in part because his four young daughters underwent FGM without his knowledge while visiting his mother. He only found out when the youngest suffered such severe bleeding she had to be taken to hospital.
Mballow said in his 15 years in parliament he had never seen a debate get as fierce as this one, adding he received anonymous death threats for voting "no".
"My political career is at risk," said Mballow. "Some of my colleagues are terrified."
'PAIN IS OK'
In the village of Sintet, around 86 km (53 miles) east of the capital, Banjul, women of all ages and a handful of men gathered in a circle one June morning under a tall mango tree.
Fatou Baldeh, an anti-FGM activist, stood in the middle, cradling a woman's baby as she mediated a discussion about the practice in her native village.
There were men and women on both sides of the debate, sharing personal stories and arguments. One young man said he wished he could make sex painless for his wife.
Baldeh, who was subjected to FGM when she was 8, described the mental associations a young girl can make when people she loves and trusts take her to an exciting event that turns into a nightmare.
"You are teaching me as a young girl that pain is OK," she said, adding that girls are also told to keep quiet about their trauma, laying the foundations for a culture of silence.
Baldeh told Reuters that learning about FGM as it is described by some aid groups felt insulting at first. Other women said they did not like the language used to describe their bodies and experiences.
The term FGM covers a range of procedures. In Gambia, 73% of women who have experienced it had their clitoris removed along with other flesh, according to government figures, while 17% underwent a practice known as infibulation, which involves narrowing the vaginal opening by creating a covering seal.
For Hawa Jallow, who spent years cutting young girls around the rural town of Bansang, her role upholding the tradition was a source of pride.
"If you don't have a certain type of intelligence, you cannot do it," said Jallow, 45, who learnt the practice from her late mother.
After FGM was banned, an NGO hired her to manage the community's HIV drugs, which she keeps in a dusty steel cabinet in her office. But she said she supports the move to make the practice legal again, arguing it only causes problems when people do it incorrectly, "just for money".
Women like Jallow are highly respected in their communities. They remain close to the families of the girls they cut, who consult them for health, spiritual and marital advice, anti-FGM campaigners say.
Many Gambians were shaken when three such women were arrested and fined, decisions that ignited protests both for and against repealing the ban.
Campaigners say those convictions were outliers.
Fatou Sakho, a 34-year-old librarian, was horrified when she learnt last October that her ex-husband's family had taken their daughter to be cut without her consent.
She has been trying to take the people responsible to court, spending months gathering evidence and pressing police to take action. But despite her efforts, no one has been charged.
The attempt to reverse the ban compounds her despair.
"I can't find the right words for my anger and frustration towards that bill," she said. "I will never understand why grown men find it so important to discuss and fight over ... how to cut off female genitalia."