Women This Week: Gambian Parliament Rejects Effort to Allow Female Genital Mutilation

Votes to Keep 2015 Ban in Place  

Lawmakers in Gambia voted this week to reject a bill that would have overturned a 2015 ban on female genital mutilation (FGM). To the relief of advocates, parliament voted against the Women’s (Amendment) Bill 2024, which had sought to decriminalize the practice. The legislation had passed a second reading in March with only five out of fifty-three lawmakers voting against it, raising concerns that Gambia would become the first country to reverse a ban on FGM. According to the World Health Organization, FGM has no health benefits and can lead to excessive bleeding, shock, psychological problems, and even death. Advocates are now focused on ensuring that the ban is actually enforced, as FGM has continued to occur despite the 2015 ban. Rose Sarr, the Gambian representative for the United Nations Population Fund, said, “You really have to spend a lot of effort making sure that you change the behavior of people because most of them believe that this is something that is good for the child. If you don’t do it, you will not be able to find a husband.” 

Record Number of Ukrainian Women in Active Combat Doubles  

More than ten thousand women are currently serving in active duty combat roles in the Ukrainian Armed Forces, a significant increase from the roughly five thousand women serving in such positions when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. According to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, over sixty-seven thousand women serve in the military in a range of positions, an increase from forty-one thousand in 2022. In a speech, Olha Stefanishyna, the Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, said, “Ukrainians are standing united against Russian aggression – both women and men.” Women serve voluntarily in Ukraine’s armed forces; men between twenty-five and sixty are subject to the draft. 

France and International Olympic Committee Criticized for Hijab Ban on French Athletes  

Amnesty International is criticizing France and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for a policy prohibiting French participants from wearing headscarves in the upcoming Olympic games. France currently prohibits women and girls from wearing the hijab while participating in many sports and has announced that no athlete competing for France will be allowed to wear one in this year’s Olympic games. A number of rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, wrote to the IOC in June asking it to call on France to reverse the ban, but the IOC deferred, claiming that the prohibition of sports hijabs was outside of its authority. In a new report, Amnesty refers to the ban as “discriminatory hypocrisy” and details the harms of hijab bans for Muslim women and girls. “Banning French athletes from competing with sports hijabs at the Olympic and Paralympic Games makes a mockery of claims that Paris 2024 is the first Gender Equal Olympics and lays bare the racist gender discrimination that underpins access to sport in France,” said Anna Błuś, Amnesty International’s Women’s Rights Researcher in Europe. 

Imaan Mirza is the intern for the Women and Foreign Policy Progra