Country Report: The Gambia August 2026
- Genocide Watch
- 1 hour ago
- 3 min read
By Alžběta Frommerová
The Gambia, officially the Republic of The Gambia, fronts the Atlantic Ocean and is the smallest country in continental Africa. The Gambia has a long history of colonization: spanning Portuguese trading posts in the late fifteenth century, subsequent Anglo-French rivalry over the river trade, and formal British rule and protectorate status that lasted until gaining independence in 1965.
In the early 2000s, The Gambia had one of the highest maternal mortality rates in Africa, estimated at 1,050 per 100,000 live births. Today, maternal mortality has declined but remains significant at 289 deaths per 100,000 live births. The country’s healthcare system continues to face challenges such as inadequate funding, shortages of trained personnel, uneven distribution of facilities, and limited access in rural areas. Preventable and treatable conditions such as malaria, respiratory infections, malnutrition, and neonatal sepsis remain major contributors to illness and death among children. The country continues to face high child mortality rates, with 56 deaths per 1,000 live births among children under five and 29 neonatal deaths per 1,000 live births.
The Gambia’s Supreme Court is currently reviewing a constitutional challenge to the 2015 ban on female genital mutilation (FGM). International human rights law recognizes FGM as a form of torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment that can have severe lifelong consequences, including infections, obstetric complications, fetal deaths, psychological trauma, and, in some cases, death. The ban in The Gambia criminalized the practice, imposing penalties of up to three years’ imprisonment and life imprisonment where the procedure results in death, although enforcement has remained limited and the practice continues in some communities.
Pressure to repeal the law has persisted, with the Supreme Islamic Council supporting repeal efforts and describing female genital cutting as “one of the virtues of Islam,” while supporters of the legal challenge have argued that the case concerns religious freedom and cultural rights. Despite the ban, The Gambia remains one of the countries with the highest prevalence of FGM in Africa. According to a 2019–2020 Demographic and Health Survey, 65% of girls undergo FGM before the age of five and a further 18% between the ages of five and nine, while UNICEF estimates that approximately three-quarters of Gambian women have undergone the practice. Each year FGM threatens approximately three million girls, and nearly two-thirds undergo FGM within their first year of life. Factors such as maternal age, marital status, and community norms contribute to the continued practice, while maternal education and household wealth serve as important protective factors.
Furthermore, the Sexual Offences Act does not criminalize marital rape, despite advocacy efforts by human rights groups to have marital rape recognized as an offense.
Due to its continued mistreatment of women and girls, Genocide Watch places The Gambia at Stage 3: Discrimination. There are also emerging indicators of Stage 6: Polarization, because the country continues to treat women and girls unequally through the widespread practice of FGM, challenges to legal protections against FGM, and the failure to criminalize marital rape.
Genocide Watch recommends:
The Gambia must strengthen enforcement of the 2015 FGM ban, rejects all efforts to decriminalize the practice, criminalizes marital rape under the Sexual Offences Act, and repeals Article 33(5) of the 1997 Constitution which exempts marriage, divorce, and inheritance from the prohibition on discrimination.
The Gambia must invest in community-level educational programs targeting mothers and expectant mothers, engages male partners and in-laws in anti-FGM campaigns, integrates cash transfer and livelihood support with FGM abandonment messaging, and prioritizes high-prevalence regions such as Basse, Janjanbureh, and Mansakonko for geographically targeted interventions.
The United Nations and the European Union should provide sustained financial and technical support to Gambian civil society organizations, hold The Gambia accountable to its CEDAW and CRC obligations through the Universal Periodic Review and CEDAW Committee reporting, and support full implementation of the TRRC recommendations relating to sexual and gender-based violence.
