全科医学杂志

The Practice of Female Genital Mutilation in the Gambia, a Survey on the Perspectives of Victims

Abstract

Alieu B. Sanneh

Female circumcision is a controversial socio-cultural practice that continues to attract the attention of humanitarian organizations. Although many African countries have enacted legislation aimed at criminalizing this practice, successfully eradicating FGM has been a challenging process. This is primarily due to the resistance by people who are not only well-organized but also united in upholding common socio-cultural beliefs that sanction the conduct of FGM. While several studies that have examined this issue approached FGM based on the perspectives of the perpetrators, this study branches away from this general wisdom to examine perceptions of FGM from the victims’ points of view. This research focuses on exploring the opinion of Gambian high school students on the practice of FGM. The results indicate that the opinion of female students on the practice of FGM has not changed, in that they support FGM. Male students on another hand do not support FGM and this study concludes that male students are less likely to support FGM than female students.