US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Gambian President Adama Barrow amid fears that lawmakers in the west African nation could vote to reverse a ban on female genital mutilation, the State Department has said.
FGM has been outlawed in the West African nation since 2015, but lawmakers in March voted to advance a highly controversial bill seeking to lift the ban, sending it for committee consideration before a final vote, which could come on June 24.
The bill is not yet on the agenda for that day, but lawmakers could decide to debate it at that time.
The issue has divided public opinion in The Gambia, a majority Muslim nation, for months.
Blinken called Barrow on Wednesday to discuss what he called “our shared commitment to democratic principles and protecting human rights, including the rights of women and girls,” a State Department statement said.
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He specifically raised the issue of the draft law, a senior State Department official said Thursday on condition of anonymity.
“We have made quite clear that those practices are horrific. We oppose them across the world,” department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters on Thursday.
“We would be incredibly concerned about any country taking steps to reverse bans on female genital mutilations.”
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The UN children’s agency UNICEF defines FGM as “all procedures involving the partial or total removal of the female external genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons.”
It can lead to serious health problems, including infections, bleeding, infertility and complications in childbirth, and impairs sexual pleasure.
The Gambia is among the 10 countries with the highest levels of FGM, where 73 percent of women and girls aged between 15 and 49 have undergone the procedure, according to UNICEF figures from this year.
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A UN report from March said that more than 230 million girls and women worldwide are survivors of the procedure.
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