The Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, Emmanuel Daniel Joof
By Fatou Sillah
The Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, Emmanuel Daniel Joof, provided an update on the state of human rights in The Gambia during a media briefing following his meeting with the president. He described the current state of human rights as good.
“The state of human rights in the country is good, but as I always say, human rights is a work in progress, there is much that can be improved, but if you are comparing to the Gambia, where we were some years ago, we have really achieved a great success in the area of human rights. But, as I said, we can improve.
“In the area of civil and political rights, we have made a lot of strides. For example, the Gambia was known as a country where you have extra judicial killings, enforced disappearances, and torture was rampant. These things don’t happen again in the country, and we say kudos to this government. Having said that, there are a lot of areas that we can improve on in the area of Economic, Social and cultural rights. Rights to a clean environment,” he said.
The chairman also highlighted the need for the government to address the rising issue of illicit drug use among the youth.
“There are also other emerging issues that the government should look into. For example, we talk about the rise in the use of drugs, especially among the youthful population, which has an impact on our society, but also the rise in hate speech. If you scan the social media, you can see the divisive nature of statements that are made using ethnic bigotry and religious bigotry,” he said.
Joof further expressed concerns about sexual and gender-based violence in The Gambia.
“We are also concerned about the issues relating to sexual and gender-based violence and the rights of women and children. These were the issues that we talked about and the need for the government to step up in this area. We are very happy, however, that the ban on female genital mutilation stays. FGM is still criminalized, and we thank the government and all the National Assembly members who voted to make sure that the act criminalizing FGM was not repealed,” He said.