Isatou Touray Takes Government To Task




The Point </publishers.html?passed_name=The%20Point&passed_location=Banjul>
(Banjul)
December 6, 2000
Banjul
Isatou Touray secretary general of GAMCOTRAP and a gender activist has described
the government's attitude towards women as contradictory.
Mrs. Touray, who was speaking in an exclusive interview, argued that the picture
is quite good, looking at the policy documents that are available throughout the
country, and all the instruments that are in existence in support of women's
empowerment and the promotion of women's rights.
However, she said, in some instances the policy rhetoric is completely different
from what happens in practice.
For instance, there are programmes in place to address health issues such as
family planning, female genital mutilation, early marriage and other cultural
activities that hinder the progress and promotion of the rights of women.
Despite these, even the state itself is promoting some of the negative aspects
through which women's rights are being violated, she pointed out. "So there is a
contradiction between policy rhetoric and practice," she added.
Citing the FGM issue, as an example, Mrs. Touray said about 90% of women and
children in the Gambia are subjected to the practice. She noted that following
some of the pronouncements made on the issue, GAMCOTRAP decided not to give up,
but to go back to the field and collect the required cultural statistical
information, and that they are presently working with the Gambia government, the
department of state for health, UNICEF, NGOs and the civil society to make a
systematic documentation of the type of FGM in this country, as well as the
reasons behind the practice.
This is going to take a long time, which means a lot of children are being
subjected to it meanwhile, because there is no policy pronouncement against it,
even though in the documents harmful traditional practices are areas of concern
in addressing women's reproductive and sexual health needs, she noted.
On what needs to be done to address the issues, Mrs. Touray pointed out that the
state has to practice what it preaches. So that if officials say women must be
given the opportunity to have a choice in terms of their reproductive health,
the radio programmes, for instance, should be geared towards, she said.
This could mean not allowing an imam or an unprogressive religious leader to
counter everything that is stated, for example.

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