GRIOTS REPUBLIC - An Urban Black Travel Mag - Jan 2016

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Think Young Women
It is in her country, Gambia, that 36
percent of women are married by age
18 and 76 percent of women are cut, or
victims of female genital mutilation.
During the conference, the country
made headlines after President Yahya
Jammeh banned female genital
mutilation (FGM) saying it is not
required in Islam. The ban is not a law
and many advocacy organizations hope
the proclamation will lead to a domino
effect amongst other countries on the
continent.
Besides governmental law, the law of
the land makes fighting the issues a
sensitive matter. It is a double-edged
sword of young advocates opposing
the customs and the older community
seeking a space for long-entrenched
tradition. When Musu returned from
Zambia, her mother-in-law was not
interested in discussing child marriage
and specifically FGM.
“You have succeeded in bringing an
end to a culture that we so value,
something that we are religiously
obligated to perform,” said her motherin-law.
At Think Young Women (TYW), Musu
and her board advocate for ending
child marriage and FGM in addition to
working women leadership through
outreach and mentoring. It is when
venturing into Gambia’s provinces that
they are met with the opinions of older
women.
They are reluctant to talk, seeing TYW
and advocates like them as harbingers of
change and immorality. To these women,
child marriage is tradition and customs
like FGM reduce female promiscuity.
Despite the dispelling of the myth that
FGM is a religious custom, these women
still believe it is an obligation- the
distinction between culture and religion
long ago blurred.
The negative effects of the customs are
undeniable and visible from The Gambia
to Zambia. Girls who marry before age
18 are more likely to experience
unwanted pregnancies and less likely to
complete primary and secondary school.
Musu threatened suicide if her husband
and his family, whom she moved in with
after marriage, didn’t allow her to
continue her studies.
The health consequences of early and
forced marriage range from a high
percentage of physical, mental,
emotional and sexual abuse within the
union to obstetric fistulas- a common
condition in young mothers where a
hole between the vagina and rectum or
bladder caused by prolonged
obstructed labor leaves a woman
incontinent of urine or feces or both.
The four types of female genital
mutilation further complicate sex and
delivery.
Practiced in at least 28 countries in sub-
Saharan Africa, the Middle East and
parts of Asia. The circumcisers are
often community women and relatives,
who have themselves been cut in youth.
Although FGM also occurs among