Gambia: NGO To Resume Fight Against FGM

Apr 27,2007 00:00 by lamin

GAMCOTRAP, Committee Against Harmful Traditional Practices , is for the first time in almost a decade, again raising its voice against what it calls female genital mutilation, FGM, in other words female circumcision. Most Gambian women, estimated to be about 68% of womenfolk, are liable to the traditional operation. The belief in the practice is ingrained among most Gambian cultural groups. Earlier this week the organization announced that it is launching operation “Stop The Knife” on the 5th May 2007. The operation is aimed at raising awareness on the perils of female genital mutilation and the activities will include training women practitioners whose job it is to do the “mutilations.” The fight against the practice used to be quite heated in the eighties up to the middle 1990s when President Jammeh put an effective stop to it accusing activists of being “donor-driven” and lacking “respect” for African culture. He therefore put an informal but effective ban on the campaign by gender activist, civil society and other organizations. Since then GAMCOTRAP had been taking a low-profile on the issue.