SERREKUNDA, Gambia — On the day her daughter was born, Fatou Saho vowed from her hospital bed that she would never subject the girl to female genital mutilation, a practice that Fatou and three-quarters of women in this West African country have endured.
So when her daughter complained four years later that her “private part” hurt, Fatou remembers her heart starting to race. Fatou suppressed her panic and asked the girl to sit on her lap, saying, “Come here, let me see.” Fatou discovered that—unbeknownst to her and against the law—her daughter had been circumcised.
Over the past year, The Gambia—a tiny, predominantly Muslim country—has been embroiled in a nationwide debate over female genital mutilation, commonly known as female genital mutilation (FGM). The often-heated debate has been sparked by a bill that would repeal the country’s ban on circumcision, making The Gambia the first country in the world to roll back such protections.
In March, a large majority of lawmakers voted to advance the bill. The health committee then held hearings with doctors, activists and religious scholars before releasing a report earlier this month recommending that the ban, which was passed in 2015, remain in place. A final vote is scheduled for July 24, though the bill’s fate could be decided earlier.
While heated debates about the practice are ongoing in Gambia, activists and government officials say girls are still being circumcised without the circumcisers being punished.
For Fatou, that day last October when she discovered her daughter, Nyimsin, had been circumcised marked the beginning of a fight for accountability, from the government and from her own family. Activists and government officials say Fatou’s story underscores the difficulties of seeking justice for such a crime and points to the daunting challenges of ending the practice, especially if the ban is lifted.
When Fatou asked her four-year-old daughter what had happened to her, Nyimsin said, “A razor blade hurt me.”
“How?” Fatou pressed her daughter. “Children don’t play with razors. … What were you doing?”
“It wasn’t me,” she recalled her daughter saying as she wiggled on Fatou’s lap. “It was my aunt and my great-uncle,” said Nyimsin, who The Washington Post is identifying by her nickname to protect her privacy. “They brought a lady and took me to the backyard, spread my legs and cut my vagina open.”
A passing remark
Growing up, Fatou, now 33, and her younger sister Sirreh Saho never talked about circumcision. But when Sirreh was in primary school, she learned about the potential side effects of FGM, including infection, severe pain, scarring, infertility and loss of pleasure.
Sirreh, now 29 and the more rebellious of the two, began to talk about the risks and later the trauma of being taken to the toilet with her mother’s consent and circumcised at the age of four. Fatou, who could not remember her experience as a baby, began to quietly question the practice as a young adult.
By the time Fatou was pregnant with Nyimsin, she had heard how FGM contributed to the near-death of a family member during childbirth. Fatou, a single mother who works as a librarian, had spent years helping a friend through a complete plugging of her vaginal opening, the most extreme form of FGM, and wondered if cutting was responsible for the disconnect between the kind of intimacy she saw in films and what she and her friends experienced.
She was still in the hospital after giving birth when her then husband’s aunts came to check on Nyimsin. One of them casually remarked that she would one day be circumcised.
Fatou remembers mustering the energy to sit up in bed to make sure her point was clear. “My child is not going to experience that,” she said sternly. “Don’t you dare think about it.”
The backlash
The current debate in Gambia over FGM erupted in August after three women were convicted of taking part in the practice. They were the first to be prosecuted since the ban was imposed and faced a possible prison sentence of up to three years or a fine of around $740.
Proponents of the ban celebrated because it seemed as if the law was finally being enforced.
Then came the backlash. One of Gambia’s most prominent imams, Abdoulie Fatty, paid the women’s fines, saying the practice was taught by the Prophet Muhammad. Fatty then launched a campaign to have the ban overturned. (Many Muslim leaders have condemned the practice, and it is not widespread in many Muslim-majority countries.)
Fatou, who was traveling in neighboring Senegal at the time, remained glued to her phone by the news, she said, posting a WhatsApp story saying she wished the women had been jailed.
What she didn’t know was that her own daughter had already been circumcised in Gambia.
The confrontation
When Fatou heard what had happened to her daughter, the first thing she did was call her sister. Sirreh rushed home and then they called the Gambia helpline together, Fatou said. An operator told them to go to the nearest police station. Fatou was convinced that her husband’s family was responsible and she wanted to file a case.
The women paid for a taxi to take police officers to her ex-husband’s house. He demanded to know why they were there.
“You know exactly why the police are here,” she remembered telling him.
He looked at her in disbelief, she said, as if he couldn’t believe she had called the police about such a matter, and asked, “Why are you pretending you’re not Muslim?” (He did not respond to requests for comment.)
The next day at the police station, Fatou and Sirreh said they were outnumbered by her ex-husband’s relatives, who were swearing and shouting. Her ex-husband said he had given his permission.
The police officers told them with a straight face to come back another time.
A difficult battle
The sisters knew they needed help. A mutual friend put them in touch with Fatou Baldeh, an internationally recognized Gambian activist who opposes FGM.
Baldeh said in an interview that Fatou Saho’s story reflects the reality that it is often the extended family, not the parents, who decide to have girls cut. Her decision to file a criminal case, Baldeh said, was rare.
When Baldeh returned to the sisters at the police station the following Monday, it became clear how difficult the fight would be.
A supervising officer looked at Nyimsin and declared her “fine,” Baldeh said. The officer said he had received orders not to pursue such cases because of the ongoing national debate, Baldeh and Fatou said.
Eventually, a young officer, Sarata Saidykhan, accompanied the women to the hospital, where a doctor confirmed that Nyimsin had been a victim of “Type 1” circumcision, in which the clitoris is partially or completely removed.
Asked about the case, Saidykhan said in an interview that the file had been transferred to the capital Banjul, about 16 miles away, and declined to answer further questions. At the police station in Banjul, Post reporters were referred to a press officer, who had no information about the case.
A ‘good woman’
Late last week, Fatou and Sirreh were in the audience as Baldeh presented the findings of her organization, Women in Liberation & Leadership, which were prepared in connection with the parliamentary debate on FGM. Baldeh urged that the ban be maintained and described the deaths allegedly caused by circumcision.
Fatou felt her eyes fill with tears. “What if my child died and I was gone?” she later recalled, thinking, as more tears fell. “What would they have told me?”
For now, Fatou’s case appears to be at a standstill, after months of cancelled court hearings and phone calls to the police.
Fatty, the imam who has been pushing for the ban to be lifted, appeared to allude to Fatou’s story in a sermon earlier this year, saying that a woman who takes her husband to court should be “ashamed of herself.” Fatty compared her story to the story of a “good woman” who refused to take her husband to court even after he beat her so badly that she lost four teeth.
Fatou has tried to shake off the pressure and ignore the looks she sometimes gets. Instead, she focuses on her daughter’s interests. She knows how much Nyimsin loves her father and has heard her say that she hopes he is not “locked up.” But Fatou also still believes that her daughter deserves justice and that the law should be applied — for the sake of all Gambian girls.
Mostly, she prays that Nyimsin won’t have the complications that so many women have. But if there are complications, Fatou said, she will be there for her daughter and they will face them together.
Ramatoulie Jawo contributed to this report.
