The Human Impact

Gambian rights activist Isatou Touray has dedicated her life to ridding her country of female genital mutilation (FGM). In return she has received death threats, been imprisoned and suffered repeated harassment.

But Touray has good news. This year, the tiny West African country is finally set to pass a law banning the brutal ritual, which causes horrific pain and long-term health and psychological problems.

Around 78 percent of women and girls in Gambia are thought to have undergone FGM, which is practised by seven ethnic groups in the predominantly Muslim country.

But attitudes are changing so fast that Touray – Gambia’s most high-profile campaigner against FGM – is optimistic she could see genital mutilation wiped out in her lifetime.

“By 2020 we should be able to have an FGM-free country in The Gambia,” she said.

Changing attitudes have resulted in a decline in female genital mutilation in Africa and the Middle East, where the practice is most prevalent, according to United Nations data released on Wednesday.

In 29 countries in those two regions, an average of 36 percent of girls aged 15-19 have been subjected to FGM, the partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, compared with an estimated 53 percent of women aged 45-49.

In Kenya, women aged 45-49 are three times more likely to have been cut than girls aged 15-19, the U.N. data, released on the International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting, show.

At seven years old, Khady Koita’s childhood was torn apart when she was pinned down and attacked by two women wielding a razor blade. The violence inflicted on her that day would change her life forever.

Last week the global campaign to end female genital mutilation (FGM) took a major step forward when a draft resolution on eliminating the practice was submitted to the United Nations General Assembly.

“FGM is horrific, brutal, degrading and indefensible,” said Koita, a leading figure in the campaign against FGM. “My big hope is that one day no girl will have to go through what I have been through.”

By Maria Caspani

LONDON (TrustLaw) – “In Mali, when a girl has not been cut, it means she is dirty, she is loose,” says Bamako-born singer Bafing Kul.

This concept baffled Kul, who struggled to understand why, in order to be pure, women in his country needed to be subjected to female genital mutilation (FGM) – a traditional practice involving the total or partial removal of the external genitalia.

The cutting, which is often done with razor blades or scissors and no pain relief, can lead to permanent physical and psychological damage.