Gambian lawmakers on Monday upheld a 2015 ban on female genital mutilation (FGM), despite pressure from religious traditionalists in the West African country.
Lawmakers rejected a controversial bill, introduced earlier in 2024, that sought to enshrine "female circumcision" as a religious and cultural practice.
Following months of heated debate, legislators ended the bill's chances by rejecting all its clauses and blocking any further vote.
"The Women's (Amendment) Bill 2024, having gone through the consideration stage with all the clauses voted down, is hereby deemed rejected," said Fabakary Tombong Jatta, the speaker of the National Assembly, adding that the legislative process had been "exhausted".
"The communal leaders see the abandoning of FGM as the weakening of the paternalistic society and their own power," Conrad Schetter, director of the Bonn International Centre for Conflict Studies, told DW.
The procedure involves removing the external female genitalia in part or in full and is mostly carried out on girls younger than five.
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