​Gambia: the Cour suprême accepts to examine a complaint aimed at decriminalising female genital mutilation 

  Although it has been banned in the country since 2015, the issue of female genital mutilation (FGM) is again being debated in The Gambia. This week, the Gambian highest court declared itself competent to examine a complaint lodged by a member of parliament and several religious associations to decriminalize this practice. The Gambian Supreme Court declared itself competent, on Tuesday 15 April, to examine a complaint against the prohibition of abortion filed by a deputy and several associations who wish to decriminalise it. The prohibition of this practice has been in force since 2015 in the country. To justify such a measure, the former dictator Yahya Jammeh who lives today in exile had then estimated the “absence of religious justification [to the excision] in Islam “.. However, despite this legislation, FGM has never been eradicated in The Gambia, which is one of the ten countries with the highest rate of female genital mutilation (FGM): 73% of women and girls aged 15 to 49 have been subjected to it, according to figures from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) for 2024. Since last year, attempts to decriminalise it again have increased. In July 2024 already, the deputy Almameh Gibba who is also at the origin of the complaint before the Cour suprême had thus presented a proposition de loi en ce sens, affirming that the prohibition of circumcision “viola[d] les droits des citoyens à pratiquer leur culture et leur religion “.. Although it had ultimately been rejected, the text had nevertheless raised a lively controversy and deeply divided the Muslim-majority country. As a sign of protest, a hundred women and “survivors”, as the victims of excisation are defined, were mobilized in front of the National Assembly. For their part, anti-FGM activists and the United Nations insist that circumcision is a practice that violates human rights.