#banjul

[postcard-from-the-past]

The Six Gun Battery in Bathurst , modern-day Banjul, Gambia

British vintage postcard

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Arrival in Banjul. — Banjul, The Gambia

[dailystreetsnapshots]

Banjul, Gambia

[chat-et-tortue]

cows in Banjul

[afrotumble]

📷 Responsible Travel

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[burnpheonix04]

Carte de la SénéGambie + Inscription en français #senegambie #senegambien #senegal #gambia🇬🇲 #dakar #banjul #africa #westafrica #senegalais #gambia n #drapeausenegal #drapeaugambie #drapeausenegalais🇸🇳🇸🇳🇸🇳🇸🇳🇸🇳 #gambian #senegalais #galsen #wolof #francophonie #Commonwealth #africapolitics #redbubble #findyourthing @redbubbleartists @panafrica_official @vogue_lounge_official @maaryam78 @senegambienne https://www.instagram.com/p/Cl3bE4Dovj4/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[westafricanboys]

[flyairpeaceng]

Gateway to West Africa: Booking Flight Tickets from Douala to Lagos

Find more info at: https://t.ly/FkGSC

[postcard-from-the-past]

Women sorting nuts in Bathurts, modern-day Banjul, Gambia

French vintage postcard

[random-racehorses]

Random Real Thoroughbred: BANJUL

BANJUL is a bay horse born in Ireland in 2001. By DANETIME out of WHITE JASMIN. Link to their pedigreequery page: https://www.pedigreequery.com/banjul

[no-passaran]

Very important and heartbreaking news.

(Organizations to support at the end of the post)

March 19th, 2024

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/03/19/gambia-female-genital-mutilation-cutting/

Gambia moves towards ending ban on female genital mutilation

Gambia’s National Assembly has voted to advance a bill that would overturn a ban on female genital cutting, putting this tiny West African country on a path to being the first nation in the world to roll back such a protection.

Many of the women who filed into the National Assembly building on Monday to witness the proceedings had experienced the horror that comes with cutting, which has been practiced for generations here. One woman said she was taken by her family at age 8 to a ceremony in which she was pinned down and cut. Another learned on her wedding night that her vaginal opening had been sealed. A third experienced years of infections and later infertility after being cut without her parents’ permission.

The women listened stoically as members of parliament — the vast majority of them men — pounded their gavels in support as Almameh Gibba, the lawmaker who introduced the bill, described it as intended to “uphold religious rights and safeguard cultural norms and values.” (...)

Already, the United Nations says that about 75 percent of girls and women in Gambia between the ages of 15 and 49 have been subjected to genital cutting, which is often described by opponents as female genital mutilation, or FGM. Globally, more than 200 million women and girls are estimated to be survivors of female genital cutting, which can involve removing part of the clitoris and labia minora and, in the most extreme cases, a sealing of the vaginal opening. Medical experts say the procedures, which do not have medical benefits, can cause a range of short- and long-term harms, including infections, severe pain, scarring, infertility and loss of pleasure.

An activist cries and gets support during a debate among Gambian lawmakers on lifting the ban on FGM. (Carmen Yasmine Abd Ali for The Washington Post)

“It is a rollback on women’s rights and bodily autonomy,” said Jaha Dukureh, a Gambian activist whose little sister died as a result of a botched procedure and who found out on her wedding night, at 15, that she had been sealed as a baby. “It is a rollback in terms of telling women what to do with their own bodies. This is all this is.” (...)

Outside the National Assembly on Monday, women and men holding signs that read, “Girls need love, not knives” squared off against Muslim clerics who were preaching to dozens of veiled girls from Islamic schools. They cheered as one cleric told them [female genital mutilation] was justified by religion.

Inside the building, where only five of Gambia’s 58 lawmakers are women, the discussion Monday was dominated by men. Among the survivors in the audience was Sainey Ceesay, the founder of a nonprofit focused on destigmatizing infertility, who said she only recently decided to start talking about what she experienced at 8 years old. At that time, women had gathered her and a group of other girls at a house in Banjul, the capital, and used a razor to cut off her clitoris.

Ceesay, who said she suffered for years from trauma and infections and was unable to conceive, is still holding out hope that the ban will not be repealed. “At least as of today, FGM is still illegal in Gambia,” she said with a quiet sigh.

Fatty, the cleric whose support helped push the bill forward, (...) explained that it was about following the teachings of the prophet, about purity and about reducing the likelihood of cancer. (Doctors say there is no basis for this claim.)

“It is something not to reduce feeling, but to control, to balance the feelings of a woman,” he said in an interview.

When asked to clarify whether he meant women have too much desire in the absence of cutting, he nodded his head and wagged a finger.

“Too much,” Fatty said. “Too much. We can say in sex, women’s power is more than men’s power. … Women can do sex longer than men. So that is why Islam came to balance. They can be together and their desire can be balanced.” (...) [Many Islamic countries do not have FGM.]

(...) Many women note that because cutting often happens when girls are no older than in elementary school, they are never given a choice in the matter. (...)

Fatou Baldeh, an activist and FGM survivor (...), said she tries to “hold grace” for the women who continue to advocate for the practice, knowing many have not been educated and have only their own experience to go by.

But sitting in the parliamentary chambers Monday as she listened to the men debate, Baldeh said she was seething.

When one activist started wiping tears from her eyes with tissues, a lawmaker demanded that women who were crying leave the chambers, and the speaker agreed, asking them not to make a scene.

Baldeh said she wanted to scream listening to the men trivialize the pain women had experienced. But she resolved to stay in the chambers, knowing the importance of the women being present, forcing the men to look at them as they cast their votes.

“We have a right to cry,” she said. “But we knew the importance of staying. So we kept our tears in.”

An activist cries during the parliamentary debate on FGM. (Carmen Yasmine Abd Ali for The Washington Post)

Full support and encouragement to the brave Gambian activists fighting to end FGM.

Support organizations and activists:

Safe Hands For Girls (survivor-led organization focused on ending female genital mutilation and child marriage, and helping women and girls who have gone through or are going through these experiences): website, X/Twitter, Instagram, YouTube.

Jaha Marie Dukureh (activist, founder of Safe Hands For Girls): X/Twitter.

Women in Liberation and Leadership (Gambian NGO): website, X/Twitter.

Fatou Baldeh (activist, in WILL) on X/Twitter.

Network Against Gender-Based Violence Gambia: X/Twitter, Facebook.

(Racists, transphobes, and other hate groups do not interact)

[thiziri]

Princess Anne attending the Independence Day Parade, during a visit to Banjul, Gambia, on 20 February 1984. 

[have-you-been-here]

Banjul, The Gambia

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📷 Cidades em Fotos

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✨ 15 days of Princess Anne ✨

August is Princess Anne’s birth month and her 73rd birthday is on the 15th so until then we will look at her fascinating life, one photo for every year!

The eighties

1980 Princess Anne and her two-year-old son Peter Phillips bringing his father his top hat before the dressage event at the Dauntsey Park Horse Trials on 4 August 1980. And mission accomplished!!!

1981 Princess Anne giving her two and a half year old son Peter and baby daughter Zara a BIG squish during a photo call on the day of Zara’s christening on 27th July 1981

1982 Princess Anne smiling as city councilman Jim Greenwood proclaims her an honorary Texan during a dinner in her honor on June 23rd 1982.

1983 Princess Anne being a literal fairytale princess at a party for the British Oscar Winners at Hampton Court, on 1st January 1983.

1984 Princess Anne watching The Independence Day Parade In Banjul, Gambia, as part of her visit to work on behalf of the Save the Children fund of which she is president on 18th February 1984.

1985 Princess Anne competing in the snow at the Aldon Horse Trials on 16th March 1985.

1986 Princess Anne as Chief Commandant visiting HMS Royal Arthur in WRENS Uniform on 27th February 1986.

1987 Princess Anne, followed closely by a certain Commander 👀 at Royal Ascot on 16th June 1987.

1988 Princess Anne being painted by John Stanton Ward for a commissioned painting from the Austin Reed Group, 1988.

1989 Commander Tim Laurence smiling at his newly revealed lover (after the letter scandal), Princess Anne and her daughter Zara as they attend Royal Ascot, 20th June 1989.