After an intense campaign in the streets, the parliament decided to maintain the legislation protecting women and girls.
By: Marcel
A victory for women’s rights in The Gambia was achieved last Monday, July 15, 2024, when parliament voted to uphold the ban on female genital mutilation (FGM). With 34 votes in favor and 19 against, the decision reflects the impact of a three-month campaign led by activists. These struggles began in March of this year after 42 parliamentarians had voted to repeal the law protecting these women.
The Gambia, a country on the west coast of Africa, gained international attention earlier this year when it appeared on the verge of becoming the first nation to roll back its protections against female genital mutilation. However, thanks to the mobilization of activists, the National Assembly upheld the ban put in place in 2015. “We did everything we could collectively to ensure that the law was upheld,” said Jaha Dukureh, an anti-mutilation activist.
The March decision, which garnered 42 votes in favor of repealing the ban, was overturned after an intense three-month campaign by women’s rights activists. Many parliamentarians changed their vote after intense pressure from the streets, which drew public attention to the negative impacts of mutilation, which in The Gambia usually involves the removal of the clitoris and labia minora. “This is a significant victory for women and girls in The Gambia, but also beyond,” said Satang Nabaneh, a Gambian human rights scholar.
The women’s rights movement in every country in the world is facing pushback. Rights such as the legalization of abortion or labor rights are being revoked in several places, reflecting the growth of male chauvinism and the new far right, which blatantly attacks the democratic freedoms that the class struggle has been wresting from capitalist states in recent decades. The situation in Gambia is part of this global trend, where only through struggle is it possible to maintain the rights won.
This Gambian experience shows that popular mobilization is indispensable in political disputes. Without struggle, the repeal of the ban would have been certain. The victory was achieved through collective effort and continued popular pressure on legislators. This is an important lesson in combating the liberal politics of institutionalizing movements and activists. Action through institutional channels, when they exist, cannot substitute for the struggle in the streets. Rather, they tend to serve it.
For a deeper analysis of the struggle against the far right, we recommend reading the complete text How to fight the far-right? This analysis, written in Spanish, was penned by Ame Luna from Spain and, although it is from last year, it is still very current. Here is an important conclusion about the fight against the far right:
“Only the organized struggle of the working class, that guarantees its self-defense as in Greece and its tireless fight against the bosses’ adjustment, which annihilated Golden Dawn along the way, can confront the far right and fascism, put an end to the roots of the regression, decadence, and barbarism to which this regime and this economic system, which are breeding grounds for reactionary ideologies.”
