Three in four women.
One law worth defending.
Female genital mutilation cuts across generations in The Gambia — held in place by tradition, silence, and the belief that a girl must be altered to be accepted. This brief lays out what the evidence shows, why the practice endures, and what it took to keep a hard-won ban alive.
What female genital mutilation is
Female genital mutilation (FGM) refers to all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons.2 It carries no health benefits and causes lasting harm.
The World Health Organization classifies FGM into four types, from partial or total removal of the clitoral glans (Type I) through excision of the labia (Type II), narrowing of the vaginal opening or infibulation (Type III), to all other harmful procedures such as pricking, piercing, or cauterising (Type IV).2 In The Gambia the most common forms are Type I and Type II — excision of the clitoris and labia minora — often performed by a traditional cutter known locally as a ngansingba.
“FGM is a violation of the human rights of girls and women… and reflects deep-rooted inequality between the sexes.”
World Health OrganizationBecause the practice targets girls — usually with no ability to consent — international bodies treat it not as a cultural variant but as a form of gender-based violence and a violation of the rights of the child. The distinction matters: it moves FGM from a matter of custom to be debated toward a harm to be prevented.
How widespread it is, and where it is heading
The Gambia has one of the highest FGM prevalence rates in the world. National surveys place the share of women aged 15–49 who have been cut at roughly three in four — a figure that has moved only slowly over a decade.
Figures drawn from UNICEF global FGM datasets and national MICS/DHS surveys; The Gambia = 2018 MICS.13 Bars scaled to 100%.
The trend among younger cohorts offers cautious encouragement. Data comparing older and younger age groups suggest prevalence is beginning to decline among girls under 15, and attitudes are shifting: a growing minority of Gambian women and men now say the practice should end.3 But change is generational and uneven — and it is fragile enough that a single reversal in the law could undo years of progress.
The timing of harm
In The Gambia, cutting typically happens very young. Roughly half of affected girls are cut before the age of five, and the large majority before adolescence.3 This is a critical fact for prevention: because the decision is made by parents and grandparents long before a girl can speak for herself, effective advocacy has to reach the adults who hold that decision.
The pattern beneath the average
A single national figure hides sharp differences. FGM in The Gambia clusters by ethnicity, by region, by wealth, and — most tellingly — by whether a woman's own mother was cut.
Prevalence is far higher in rural areas than in urban centres, and it tracks closely with certain ethnic communities, among whom the practice can approach near-universality. The strongest single predictor is intergenerational: girls whose mothers underwent FGM are overwhelmingly likely to be cut themselves. The practice reproduces itself through family lines, which is why breaking one link — persuading one mother, one grandmother — can protect a whole line of daughters.
A geographic divide
The practice is markedly more common in rural communities, where traditional authority is stronger and access to health information and schooling is weaker.
Community concentration
Rates vary enormously between ethnic groups — from near-universal in some communities to comparatively low in others — making targeted, community-led work essential.
An inherited fate
The single best predictor of whether a girl will be cut is whether her mother was. Ending the cycle means reaching the woman who decides.
The reasons given, and the reasons underneath
FGM survives not because families wish harm on their daughters, but because a web of social, economic, and misattributed religious pressures makes cutting feel like protection. Understanding those reasons is the precondition for changing them.
A rite of passage and a condition of marriage
In many communities FGM is framed as the threshold a girl crosses into womanhood, and as a prerequisite for marriage and childbearing. An uncut girl may be stigmatised as unclean or unmarriageable — so parents who love their daughters may cut them precisely to secure their future. This is the cruel logic that awareness work must dismantle: the belief that a girl must be harmed to be accepted.
Control of sexuality and “honour”
The practice is frequently justified as a way to preserve virginity, curb desire, and protect family honour — placing the burden of a community's ideas about chastity on a child's body.
Religion — often invoked, not required
FGM is sometimes described as a religious obligation, particularly in some Muslim communities. It is essential to state clearly: FGM is not prescribed by Islam, and religious scholars across the region have said so.4 Engaging faith leaders to correct this misattribution has been one of the most effective levers for change.
Families do not cut their daughters out of cruelty. They cut them to make them belong. Change the meaning of belonging, and you change the practice.
Advocacy framing — RFLDA livelihood for cutters
For the traditional practitioners who perform FGM, it is also a source of income and status. Sustainable abandonment therefore often means offering cutters an alternative livelihood and a public role in ending the practice, rather than leaving them to defend it.
What the cutting costs
FGM has no medical benefit and a long list of harms. They fall into three overlapping categories — immediate, long-term physical, and psychological — and their severity depends on the type of cutting, the girl's age, and the conditions under which it is done.
At the time of cutting
Severe pain, haemorrhage, shock, infection, injury to surrounding tissue, and — where instruments are shared — risk of blood-borne disease.
Across a lifetime
Chronic pain, recurrent urinary and reproductive-tract infections, cysts, menstrual difficulties, sexual dysfunction, infertility, and complications in childbirth for mother and newborn.
Beyond the body
Anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress, and — for those who resist — stigma, discrimination, and barriers to education and work.
The obstetric burden deserves particular attention. Women who have undergone FGM face heightened risks during delivery, including prolonged labour, tearing, and postpartum haemorrhage — a danger that compounds in settings with limited emergency care.5 The harm, in other words, does not end with the girl: it follows her into motherhood and reaches the next generation.
These consequences are why FGM is understood as a public-health emergency and not merely a rights abstraction. Every prevented cutting is measured not only in dignity restored but in infections, haemorrhages, and childbirth deaths avoided.
The 2015 ban
In December 2015 The Gambia amended its Women's Act to prohibit FGM outright — a landmark that placed the country among a growing set of African states to legislate against the practice.
Women's (Amendment) Act 2015 — sections 32A & 32B
- Prohibition
- Engaging in, procuring, or performing FGM is a criminal offence.
- Penalty
- Imprisonment of up to three years, a fine, or both — rising to life imprisonment where the practice causes death.
- Duty to report
- Knowledge of an intended or completed act carries an obligation that failure to report is itself penalised.
- Scope
- Applies to practitioners, procurers, and those who promote or facilitate the practice.
A law, however, is only as strong as its enforcement. For years after 2015 prosecutions were rare, and the first convictions did not come until 2023 — a case that, as the next section describes, became the trigger for a political backlash.6 The gap between text and practice is where advocacy has had to concentrate: turning a statute on paper into a norm communities actually observe.
The year the ban was almost lost
In 2024 The Gambia came within a parliamentary vote of becoming the first country in the world to reverse a ban on FGM. The fight to stop that repeal became a defining moment for the region's women's movement.
The law is enforced at last
Three women are convicted and fined for performing FGM on infant girls — the first sentences under the 2015 ban. Supporters of the practice pay the fines and frame the case as an attack on tradition and faith.
A bill to undo the ban
A private member's bill to repeal the prohibition passes an initial parliamentary stage, backed by influential religious figures. International observers warn of a precedent that could ripple across the continent.
Survivors, doctors, and advocates respond
Women's organisations, health professionals, survivors, and rights groups — RFLD among the civil-society voices across West Africa — mount public testimony, legal argument, and coordinated advocacy against the repeal.
The ban holds
Parliament rejects the repeal bill, keeping the 2015 prohibition in force. The outcome is a reprieve, not a resolution — the campaign exposed how contested and reversible the protection remains.7
The episode carries a lesson that shapes this brief's conclusion: legal protection is not a finish line. It must be defended, funded, and matched by the slower work of shifting the beliefs that put the repeal on the table in the first place.
The commitments The Gambia has already made
The case against FGM does not rest on Gambian law alone. It is anchored in a stack of international and regional instruments the country has signed — obligations that make protection a legal duty, not a policy preference.
| Instrument | What it requires |
|---|---|
| Maputo ProtocolAfrican Union · 2003 | Explicitly requires states to prohibit and condemn all forms of FGM through legislative and other measures (Article 5). |
| CEDAWUnited Nations · 1979 | Obliges states to eliminate discriminatory practices harmful to women; FGM is named in the Committee's guidance. |
| Convention on the Rights of the ChildUnited Nations · 1989 | Requires states to abolish traditional practices prejudicial to the health of children (Article 24.3). |
| Sustainable Development Goal 5.3United Nations · 2015 | Commits the world to eliminate FGM and child marriage by 2030 as a target of gender equality. |
| ACHPR / Banjul CharterAfrican Union · 1981 | Guarantees rights to dignity, health, and physical integrity — the framework under which RFLD holds observer status. |
Together these instruments give advocates a firm footing: The Gambia is not being asked to invent new values but to honour commitments it has already ratified. That reframing — from foreign imposition to sovereign promise kept — is central to persuading sceptical audiences.
The work of ending it
Laws are defended and norms are changed by people. RFLD — the Réseau des Femmes Leaders pour le Développement, a pan-African afro-feminist network with observer status before the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights — is one of many organisations turning commitment into community-level change.
The approach that works is rarely a single campaign. It layers education, faith engagement, survivor leadership, and economic alternatives — meeting the practice at each point where it is held in place.
Reaching girls and their parents
Comprehensive sexual and reproductive education, and expanded schooling for girls, give families the information and confidence to break the cycle.
Correcting the record
Working with imams and religious scholars to affirm that Islam does not require FGM removes one of the practice's most powerful justifications.
Testimony that persuades
Survivors and health workers describing the real consequences move audiences that statistics alone cannot reach.
A dignified exit for cutters
Offering practitioners new income and a public role in abandonment turns potential opponents into advocates.
Shifting who decides
Engaging fathers, husbands, and community leaders changes the marriage-market pressure that sustains the practice.
Making the ban real
Helping communities understand the 2015 law — and supporting its careful enforcement — closes the gap between statute and behaviour.
What it will take to finish
The Gambia has a ban, a growing shift in attitudes, and a survivor-led movement that just defeated an attempt to turn back the clock. Abandonment by 2030 is possible — but only if the work below is sustained.
- Protect the law. The 2024 repeal came close. Continued vigilance, cross-party consensus, and public education are needed to keep the 2015 ban secure.
- Enforce it wisely. Prosecution must be paired with prevention, so enforcement supports abandonment rather than driving the practice underground.
- Invest in girls' education — especially comprehensive sexual and reproductive education, the strongest long-term protector.
- Empower women to decide about their own bodies and those of their daughters, and support the mothers and grandmothers who choose to stop.
- Engage men and faith leaders to dismantle the marriage-market and religious pressures that keep the practice alive.
- Fund community-led work at the scale the problem demands, and sustain it through the generational timeline that real change requires.
A world where every girl grows up whole.
Ending FGM is a complex challenge, but it is not an impossible one. It asks for patience, resources, and the courage to keep going after the headlines fade. Together, we can create a world where every woman and girl lives free from violence and discrimination.
Sources & further reading
Statistics in this brief are drawn from national household surveys and international agency datasets. Prevalence figures for FGM vary by survey year and instrument (MICS vs DHS); this brief uses the most recent nationally representative figures and notes ranges where they differ. Readers should consult primary sources for exact definitions and confidence intervals.
- The Gambia Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) 2018 — Gambia Bureau of Statistics & UNICEF. National prevalence of FGM among women aged 15–49 (~73%); an earlier 2013 Demographic and Health Survey reported 74.9%.
- World Health Organization — "Female genital mutilation" fact sheet. Definition, four-type classification, and human-rights framing.
- UNICEF — Female Genital Mutilation: global and country datasets and statistical profiles. Age at cutting, generational trends, and attitudinal data.
- 28 Too Many / regional religious-scholar statements on FGM and Islam, affirming the practice is not a religious requirement.
- WHO study group on FGM and obstetric outcome — evidence on heightened maternal and neonatal risks associated with FGM at delivery.
- Reporting on the first convictions under the Women's (Amendment) Act 2015, The Gambia, 2023.
- International news reporting on The Gambia's 2024 parliamentary vote rejecting the bill to repeal the FGM ban.
Prepared as an advocacy and evidence brief. Where a precise figure could not be verified against a primary source, the text uses qualitative language ("roughly," "the majority") rather than a false-precision number. Please verify all statistics against the cited primary sources before republication.