The Gambian president has announced that the country will ban female genital mutilation with immediate effect.

Female genital mutilation, or FGM, involves the removal of the labia and clitoris usually from young girls, a procedure which causes bleeding, infections and vaginal pain among other lifelong health complications.

More than 130 million women worldwide – most whom are in Africa and the Middle East – have been subjected to the procedure, and in the Gambia, 76 per cent of women have undergone it.

Following a campaign by anti-FGM activists and the Guardian, president Yahya Jammeh has said that the practice will be banned with immediate effect, though he did not make clear when the government would draft the legislation to enforce the ban.