• Download the Gambia section of Home Truths: A Global Report on Equality in the Muslim Family in English or Arabic.

• View the report submitted to Musawah by GAMCOTRAP.

Muslims constitute 90 per cent of Gambia’s population. The Gambia is seen to be one of the least developed countries in the world, with large areas of poverty in three of the seven administrative regions, and increased urban poverty in recent years. The Constitution of the Gambia guarantees equal dignity and equal treatment between men and women. However, these provisions have been weakened by the fact that the Constitution defines the personal status law as ‘the Sharia’. A family code exists, but it is not very well known to many women and it is not clear whether the Qadi courts even refer to it. Female genital mutilation, early/forced/arranged marriages, wife inheritance (where a relative of the deceased husband inherits the widow), polygamy, maintenance and custody of the child are areas of contention for women in the Muslim family in the Gambia.

• Women do not enjoy equal opportunities, leaving them oppressed and in subordinate positions in which they are powerless and voiceless. Injustices against women are maintained using religious interpretations, culture and tradition as justifications.
   
• There is a shortage of qualified Qadis in the Qadi Courts, but women scholars are not appointed to such positions because women are not recognised by Gambian Islamic scholars as potential Qadis. Many of the current Qadis are not literate in English, thus lean on tradition and practices that have been proven to discriminate against women.
   
• Labour laws allow women to work in principle, but most women need permission from their husbands to take on certain forms of work.
   
• Young girls are introduced into polygamous marriages as young as 13, 14 or 15 years and the education of these girls is sacrificed in the process. They become disempowered and subservient in their marriage and in public life.
   
• Arbitrary divorce based on flimsy excuses is a common practice in the Gambia.
   
• Over 13 per cent of Gambian households are female headed. These heads of household are not recognised to hold power in the family, and are discriminated against because they are women.
   
• Activists are attacked by some Muslim scholars in radio programmes and in the State House Mosque during Friday prayers. Women activists are described as divorcees, anti-Islam, influenced by the ‘West’ and receiving funds in order to set women against men.
   
• When the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (Maputo Protocol) was presented to the National Assembly, there were serious contentions over articles that are supposed to safeguard the bodily integrity and dignity of women (e.g. female genital mutilation, early/forced marriage, inheritance, reproductive health and access to family planning services). The National Assembly Members used religious arguments to place reservations on some of these articles. Women’s rights organisations and activists mobilised around the issues, working with progressive religious leaders and their own knowledge of the religion to challenge the reservations. It became clear that the Members’ actions were more to maintain patriarchal values and control over women than religious prescriptions.

• The Gambia has ratified all of the international conventions and protocols that promote women’s rights; efforts are being made to implement them. Awareness of women’s rights as enshrined in these instruments is forcing Islamic scholars to discuss women’s rights within the context of Islam. Women’s rights activists are challenging the interpretations based on the realities of women’s lived experiences.
   
• Women are realising that social and legal structures are not cast in stone and that equality and justice must be achieved to restore the dignity of women in the Qur’an, human rights discourses and international and regional conventions. Women recognise that knowledge of Islam is no longer a male preserve, and that it is necessary for all people to engage with the texts.
   
• Women’s rights organisations and individual scholars have made efforts to improve the situation, including:
  
  • Organising community interventions that engaged families, local authorities, legislators and the judiciary to promote the well being of women and facilitate awareness of the need for equality and justice in family laws.
  • Successfully advocating for the ratification of the Maputo Protocol in 2005.
  • At the request of the Law Reform Commission, guiding the law reform process in 2007 with respect to women’s issues, including providing information on the conditions of women in their families and recommending actions for effective law reform.
  • Pushing for the 2008 tabling of the first draft of a Women’s Bill in the National Assembly; efforts are still being made to advocate for adoption of this Bill.
  • Using international dates and events to advocate for the ratification of protocols and bills on women’s rights.

• Organisations and activists resist attacks by adopting a strategic consultative process. When they were denied access on public television, for example, they reached out to the Secretary of State for Information and Technology, which led to their being broadcast on the national television.
   
• In outreach programmes, participants are challenged to ask local religious leaders whether it is tradition or Islam that enjoins women to marry by force, denies them their inheritance, or requires female genital mutilation even if it has negative effects on their health and sexuality. In some communities the mosque is used as a meeting place to discuss the work of women’s rights activists; the issue of female genital mutilation has been taken up as a topic of Khutbah.

Fatou: ‘When I went to seek for justice in the Qadi Court regarding the maintenance of my children, the Qadi told me to return home and do like my mother did, that is to be silent and never complain.’

Sarjo: ‘When my father died he left a plot of land and I was told that women do not inherit land because they are going to marry in another family. When I went to the Qadi and the elders I was told that my brothers were right.’