"It's always been about pleasing men and what they like," said Fatoumata Sanneh, a Gambian women's rights activist. "Before, there was no conversation about women other than about controlling them. But that with this dialogue, that is changing - we are growing as a country, we are going forward."
Throughout Gambia, a nation of 2.5 million carved out of Senegal during British colonial rule, about 75 percent of women and girls ages 15 to 49 have been subject to female genital cutting, according to the United Nations.
Proponents of FGM, including a prominent imam who launched the effort to change the law, have said it's about preserving culture, respecting religion and controlling women's sexuality. Opponents say it has a range of harms, including risk of death from a botched procedure, recurrent infections, pain and infertility.
Even in the "least severe" form, part of the clitoris - a small organ which has thousands of nerve endings and is usually capable of producing the most sexual pleasure for women - is removed. So survivors say that among the most common, but usually least discussed, effects of FGM is a deeply pe
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