Gambian lawmakers have voted to advance a measure to lift the ban on female genital cutting by eliminating legal protections for millions of girls, raising fears that other countries could follow suit.

Of the 47 members of The Gambia’s National Assembly present on Monday, 42 voted to refer a bill to lift the ban to a committee for consideration before a final vote. Human rights experts, lawyers and women’s and girls’ rights activists say lifting the ban would undo decades of efforts to end female genital cutting, a centuries-old ritual linked to ideas of sexual purity, obedience and control.

If the law goes through its final stages, the small West African country of Gambia will become the first country in the world to withdraw protection from cuts.

Government committees will be able to propose changes before the bill returns to Parliament for a final reading in about three months – but analysts say the crucial stage has now passed: its supporters will gain momentum and it will likely become law.

The Gambia banned cutting in 2015 but only enforced the ban last year, when three practitioners were hit with heavy fines. An influential imam in the Muslim-majority country has taken up the cause and led calls for the ban to be lifted, citing cuts – which is the case in The Gambia usually included Removal of the clitoris and labia minora of girls between the ages of 10 and 15 is a religious obligation and culturally important.

On Monday morning, anti-cuts activists gathered outside parliament in Banjul, Gambia’s capital, but police set up barricades and prevented many from getting inside – while barring religious leaders and their supporters from entering, according to Fatou Baldeh, one of Gambia’s pro-cuts representatives granted to leading opponents of genital cutting.

“It was very sad to see the whole debate and men trying to justify why something like this would continue,” Ms. Baldeh said after the vote. She said she feared that the men who led the charge – whom she described as extremists – succeeded and would next try to roll back other laws, such as one that bans child marriage.

In Parliament, the MPs – all men – exchanged arguments.

“When people are arrested for FGM, it means that they are deprived of the right to practice their religion,” said a member of parliament, Lamin Ceesay Parliamentary Guarda project that promotes parliamentary transparency and accountability.

“Let’s protect our women,” said another, Gibbi Mballow. “I am a father and cannot support such a bill.” He added: “Religion says we should not harm women.”

Cutting can take various forms and is most common in Africa, but is also widespread in parts of Africa Asia and that middle East. It is considered internationally a serious violation of human rights and often leads to serious health problems such as infections, bleeding and severe pain Cause of death in the countries where it is practiced.

Worldwide, Genital cutting is increasing despite campaigns to stop it – largely due to population growth in the countries where it is common. According to UNICEF, it affects more than 230 million women and girls – an increase of 30 million people since the organization’s last estimate in 2016.

Four MPs voted against presenting the bill and one abstained on Monday. Only five of Gambia’s 58 lawmakers are women, meaning men are leading the discussion about a practice forced on young girls.

“They have no say,” said Emmanuel Joof, head of Gambia’s National Human Rights Commission.

Lifting the ban will have “serious, life-threatening consequences for the health and well-being of Gambia’s women and girls,” said Geeta Rao Gupta, the U.S. ambassador for global women’s issues.

From 1994 to 2016, The Gambia was led by one of the region’s most notorious dictators, Yahya Jammeh Truth Commission Discovered in 2021, the police had a hit squad torture and kill people, raped women, and threw many people in prison for no reason. He named those fighting to end female genital mutilation, often known by the acronym FGM: “enemies of Islam.”

So it came as a shock to many Gambian opponents of circumcision when Mr Jammeh banned the practice in 2015 – which many observers attributed to the influence of his Moroccan wife.

The new law was hailed as a turning point in Gambia, where three-quarters of women and girls are cut. But the law was not enforced, and this encouraged pro-cutting imams “determined to create a theocratic state” to try to repeal it, according to Mr. Joof.

Clerics in the Muslim world disagree about whether cutting is Islamic. but it is not in the Koran. The most vocal of the Gambian imams, Abdoulie Fatty, did it argued that “Circumcision makes you cleaner” and states that the husbands of women who are not circumcised suffer because they cannot satisfy their wives’ sexual appetites. Many Gambians accused Mr. Fatty of being a hypocrite, pointing out that Mr. Fatty was the president’s imam when Mr. Jammeh banned cutting but apparently said nothing.

At the first reading of the bill two weeks ago, Mr Fatty gathered a group of young women to chant pro-cut slogans outside Parliament. With their faces veiled – unusual in The Gambia – they chanted and waved pink placards that read: “Female circumcision is our religious belief.”

Ms. Baldeh, the opponent of genital cutting, was 8 years old as she was held and cut up. But when she first heard the term “female genital mutilation” when she was getting her master’s degree in sexual and reproductive health, she didn’t realize it was something she had been through because she considered it part of her culture. not something violent that harmed women. Her own grandmother, a traditional birth attendant, took part in the cutting.

However, after reading and speaking to other women, Ms. Baldeh realized what was happening to her and began speaking out against circumcision – initially by trying to change the minds of her own family members. She became one of the most prominent voices speaking out against the cuts in The Gambia.

Cutting could be stopped within a generation if the will was there, Ms. Baldeh said.

“If you don’t circumcise a girl, she won’t circumcise her future daughters,” she said.

On March 4, Ms. Baldeh was at the White House with Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Jill Biden, the first lady, and received the International Women of Courage Award for her work against circumcision. But on the same day, Gambian lawmakers heard the first reading of the bill to lift the ban on cuts – a law that would undo the legal gains that Ms. Baldeh and other opponents of cuts had won.

She and other observers said most Gambian lawmakers did not necessarily believe in cuts but supported the bill because they feared losing their parliamentary seats.

“The saddest thing is the government’s silence,” she said.

This silence even extends to the ministry responsible for the protection of women and children, headed by Fatou Kinteh, who was previously the United Nations Population Fund’s coordinator for gender-based violence and female genital mutilation in Gambia. When reached by phone Saturday, Ms. Kinteh declined to comment on a possible lifting of the cutting ban, saying she would call back later. She never did that.

Ms Baldeh said recent rhetoric from imams in favor of circumcision had spread to many Gambian men, sparking a flood of online abuse against women who spoke out against the practice, and with it a flourishing movement to increase rights of women and girls. Rights in Gambia. But she said the online abuse won’t derail her efforts.

“If this law is repealed, we know they want more,” Ms. Baldeh said. “So we will fight until the end.”