UNITED NATIONS, United States: The UN representatives have warned that plans to lift a ban on female genital mutilation (FGM) in The Gambia risks setting a “dangerous precedent.”
The practice was outlawed in the country in 2015. Legislators in west African nation, The Gambia, began considering the reversal earlier March, before this week agreeing to send it to a committee for consideration before a final vote.
Adopting the law would “set a dangerous precedent and make The Gambia the first country in the world to have stepped back from such commitments,” said Ndeye Rose Sarr, representative for sexual and reproductive health agency United Nations Population Fund and Nafisa Binte Shafique, the country’s representative for children’s agency UNICEF.
“It sends a message that the rights and dignity of girls and women are expendable, perpetuating a cycle of discrimination and violence that has no place in a just and equitable society,” a joint statement read.
The UN officials have called for the country to uphold its existing legislation.
A UNICEF report this month revealed that more than 230 million women and girls worldwide have been victims of female genital mutilation.
According to the report, 73 percent of girls and women between the ages of 15 and 49 in The Gambia have been circumcised, a figure that has remained largely unchanged over the past 30 years.
UNICEF defines this practice as partial or complete removal of female external genitalia or other damage to female genitalia for non-medical reasons.
It can lead to serious health problems such as infection, bleeding, infertility and childbirth complications, as well as impaired sexual pleasure.
