Hidden Harm: Advocate Warns FGM Is Being Carried Out on Babies in The Gambia

PC: AI Generated

A troubling shift in the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) in The Gambia is raising alarm among child protection advocates, who warn that the procedure is increasingly being carried out in secrecy on infant girls, making it harder to detect and prevent.

Sheikh Manneh, a community advocate working on protection and gender inclusion programs with the Gambia Red Cross Society, says the evolving nature of the practice poses new challenges to efforts to eliminate it.

Speaking in an interview at his office in Jambur in March 2026, Manneh said his understanding of FGM deepened after undergoing specialised training and engaging with women who have experienced its long-term consequences.

“After being trained and listening to survivors share their experiences, I realised that the practice does more harm than good,” he said.

FGM, which involves the partial or total removal of female genitalia for non-medical reasons, has been practised for generations in parts of The Gambia. In 2015, the government banned the practice in a landmark move to protect women and girls from its health risks and human rights violations.

Yet, more than a decade later, Manneh warns that the practice has not disappeared—instead, it is adapting.

“This tradition has been in The Gambia for a very long time, so change will not happen overnight,” he said. “But what is happening now is even more concerning than before.”

According to him, some families are now opting to carry out FGM on babies just months after birth—a shift from the past, when girls were more commonly subjected to the practice in adolescence.

“Today, babies are being taken at a very young age—sometimes just a few months old,” he explained. “Before, it might have happened when a girl was 15 or 16. Now it is happening at the earliest stage of life.”

The move towards cutting infants, he said, is often deliberate—designed to avoid detection.

“As a father, you cannot check your baby every day to know whether something like this has been done,” Manneh said. “These decisions are sometimes taken quietly among women within the household, without the knowledge of men.”

This growing secrecy, he added, presents a serious challenge for authorities and communities trying to monitor or prevent FGM.

“How do we monitor something that is hidden? How do we fight what we cannot see?” he asked.

Health experts have long warned of the immediate and lifelong consequences of FGM, including severe pain, infections, complications during childbirth, and psychological trauma. Manneh stressed that the risks may be even greater when the procedure is performed on infants.

“When a baby is cut, the wound can easily become infected due to bacteria, especially if it is not properly cared for,” he said. “Those complications may not be visible immediately, but they can follow the child throughout her life.”

He explained that some of these effects only emerge later—during puberty, menstruation, marriage, or childbirth.

“That baby may grow up carrying the consequences of what was done to her in infancy,” he said. “When she begins menstruation or eventually gets married, complications can arise.”

While the 2015 ban on FGM marked a significant step forward, Manneh questioned whether legislation alone is sufficient to end the practice.

“Yes, the law must be respected, and people should abide by it,” he said. “But we also need to ask whether the law alone is solving the problem—or whether it is pushing the practice further underground.” Despite the complexities surrounding enforcement, his personal stance is unequivocal.

“Based on what I have learned from survivors—the pain they described, the images and realities I have seen—I believe FGM should not be practised,” he said.

Asked whether he would allow his own daughters to undergo FGM, Manneh was firm in his response: he would not.

Still, he acknowledged that community attitudes remain divided. While many are abandoning the practice, others—particularly among older generations—continue to support it on cultural grounds.

“There are still groups of women who believe the practice should continue,” he said. “So the conversation is ongoing, and in some cases, it may create tension within families and communities.”

Advocates say ending FGM in The Gambia will require more than legislation. Sustained community engagement, education, and open dialogue are essential to shifting deeply rooted beliefs around a practice that has affected generations of women and girls.

Until then, Manneh warns, the danger may lie not only in the persistence of FGM—but in its increasing invisibility.

This article is part of the Breaking the Silence: Voices of FGM Survivors Project, supported by the Foundation for Women’s Health Research and Development (FORWARD UK).

Author: Bakary Jassey