Time to stop FGM, completely
Dear editor,
For thousands of years FGM has been practiced in Africa; a traditional practice that bears no credible reason to honour. Even though the fight to end the practice has been heightened, it is sadly alive and well in The Gambia.
FGM is an evil act. It is—for want of a better word—illegal and severe for girls and women. Every individual is entitled to basic human rights; child or not, and not even culture can take that away.
Gone are the days when people were mandated and pressured into barbaric practice. So let the first reason after a ‘NO’ be the unlawful nature of this hideous act.
The Gambian government has to be committed and devoted to work by preventing women and girls from being subjected to female genital mutilation.
Female circumcision is almost never performed by people with any medical training. As a result the procedure causes numerous physical problems aside from the damage to the external genitalia. Victims of female circumcision suffer from greater levels of uterine and pelvic infections, scarring, pain during menstruation and sex, increased risks of bladder infections and many other physical problems.
It causes chronic pain and it has no medical procedure; it is done as plainly rough as possible using germ-infested instruments and worse still, with no administration of an anaesthetic to ease the terrible pain from the cuts and injuries. No one should ever have to go through this kind of excruciating ordeal.
The infuriating part of this is that since there are no medications to handle the pain, the victims struggle through the procedure and this can alter some cuts thereby inflicting random injuries on the organs.
FGM has seriously not done any form of good in the African society and that’s why it is baffling to comprehend the reason why is it hard for people to see it for the evil that it is.
Our Gambian society is typically conservative, so hard to get the girls to speak up or even see the need to. Already everyone around them thinks tradition is supreme always right, so who can they talk to? And even after marriage, the fear and willingness to fulfill sexual duties linger. Now is the time to finally stop FGM and call it for what it is: a treacherous act against women and girls.
Aisha Tamba
Brusubi
The distribution of the transport allowance is injustice
Dear editor,
I welcome the increment in transport allowances for the civil servants in the 2018 budget. This is long overdue as there has been no increment in salaries which are the poorest in the sub-region. Salaries in the Gambia are so low that it is virtually impossible for someone to live a decent life with it. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why we see corruption seemingly on the increase.
Thus, when it was announced in the 2018 budget that there will be an increment in the transport allowances, civil servants received it with joy and some form of contentment. However, the distribution is very unjust and should be revisited. According to the current distribution format, civil servants of Grade One through to Grade Nine receive a transport allowance of D1500 (one thousand five hundred dalasis); those in Grade Ten receive an amount of D2000 (two thousand dalasis). Directors, deputy permanent secretaries, permanent secretaries receive D8500 and D10, 000 (ten thousand dalasis) respectively.
One can see that this is far from being just and equitable. One can understand that there cannot be equality as the responsibilities vary very much from one civil servant to the other, but there can – and has to be – equity in the increment. Transport is transport whether one is an ordinary civil servant of Grade Three or a deputy permanent secretary of Grade Twelve, they both use the same means of transportation. They pay the same fares if they don’t have a car or buy the same amount of fuel if they do.
It is unfathomable therefore that there is a three hundred and twenty-five percent difference between those in Grade One to Nine and those categorized as directors, deputy permanent secretaries and permanent secretaries. For instance, we know that some senior masters in schools and principals are in Grade Twelve, but they do not enjoy what those categorized as directors, DDPSs and PSs enjoy. All these are civil servants and their work is as important to the nation as the work of the others. Why then do some civil servants receive two thousand and others receive eight thousand dalasis? This is a form of injustice that has to be addressed immediately!
No nation can develop without the input of the ordinary workers. It is the ordinary workers that generate the income of the nation, generate the goods and services to be utilized by the citizens and thus, they deserve to enjoy the fruit of their labour to the fullest. The top officials cannot – should not – be allowed to formulate policies which are only for their own benefits to the detriment of the common man. It is high time we recognized the contribution of these people and treat them equitably, if not equally. The alternative is a recipe for instability. As it is said, peace is not the absence of violence but the presence of justice. If we want peace, we must ensure justice and fairness!
Musa Bah
Nusrat SSS
