CNN —Gambia’s parliament has voted to uphold a landmark law that bans female genital mutilation (FGM) in the largely Muslim nation, after religious groups pushed for the legislation to be repealed. If Monday’s bid had been successful, the tiny West African country would have been the first in the world to relegalize FGM after criminalizing it. The law also punished perpetrators with life sentences in cases where the practice led to death. In Gambia, 73% of women aged between 15 and 49 years had experienced FGM as of 2020, according to the United Nations. More than 65% of those women were subjected to the practice “before the age of five years,” the UN said.

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Persons: CNN —, Yahya Jammeh, Mai Ahmad Fatty, Antonio Guterres Organizations: CNN, Amnesty, United Nations, UN Locations: Gambia