FGM
activist and founder of Safe Hands for Girls, Jaha Dukureh, has called on the new
government to affirm publicly that Female Genital Mutilation and Child Marriage
laws passed by the former regime are here to stay.
Jaha
was briefing journalists on the upcoming FGM Media Award held at the GPU
secretariat.
“We
are even more challenged as journalists and activists because the former
president passed the law on FGM before he left,” she said.
Jaha
said: “I have met with the new government and the president has assured me that
the law is not going anywhere but we have not heard them publicly.”
She
said it was very crucial for the people on the ground to understand that this
was not a Jammeh law but a Gambian law.
She
added that the new government, saying it indoors was not enough, hence they
need to come out in the press or release statements.
According
to Jaha, the more government remained silent, the more people would continue to
say that the law is a Jammeh law and continue to flout it with impunity.
For
her part, Lisa Camara, Global Media Campaign coordinator for Gambia, said there
are lots of challenges they faced with religion as the major one as some people
still associate FGM with religion.
“We are one of the few organisations that
directly give grants to journalists to do research on FGM cases and publish it
or talk about it on the airwaves,” she said
Also
speaking, the GPU Secretary General, Saikou Jammeh, said: “We are very proud
and happy that the media in The Gambia have over the years been supportive of
the campaign to end FGM in the country.”
He
said he could remember when ex-president Jammeh left office that some people
were reporting in the papers that some other people were calling for the ban on
FGM to be lifted.
“It means that there are lots of girls will be
at the risk of getting cut since they are calling for the laws to be scrapped.
It will also give prominence to a lot of FGM issues in The Gambia,” he said.
The
Press Union Code of conduct for journalist does not allow journalists to
promote harmful traditional practices, he said.
