Yearbook 2004
The Gambia. The total population in Gambia is 2,416,679 people in 2020. The Free Trade Union International (FFI) condemned restrictions on trade union rights in The Gambia and discrimination against women in education and in the labor market. According to FFI, one third of children aged 10-14 are forced into the labor market. FFI described the Gambia as a regional center for human trafficking, not least for sexual exploitation. UN Children’s Fund UNICEF raised alarm that the sexual exploitation of children is increasing in The Gambia and that it is mainly Gambian men – not Northern European tourists – who abuse their children. According to UNICEF, Gambian sugar daddies are taking advantage of the increasing poverty of attracting children, often with parental consent.
In July, public hearings were started by current and former ministers as well as senior military, who were forced to detail their financial assets in detail. The hearings were described as a way to curb corruption, but since the interrogations were updated after a day on the occasion of the lavish celebration of the regime’s ten years in power, there was some doubt about the honest intent of the fight against corruption.
In November, the government abolished a two-year-old, heavily criticized media law, just before the Supreme Court would deal with the journalist association’s appeal against it. But instead, a new law was introduced that penalizes “upsetting” reporting with up to three years in prison. Shortly thereafter, one of Gambia’s best-known journalists, the newspaper The Point’s editor-in-chief Deyda Hydara, was assassinated, which criticized the new law.
GAMBIA. – Territory of West Africa belonging to Great Britain and consisting of a strip, never wider than 80 km., Along the two banks of the lower course and the estuary of the Gambia river (v.). With a maximum length of about 385 km. in a straight line, the Gambia is all enclosed among the French possessions. It consists of a colony and a protectorate. The colony (178 sq. Km) includes the island of Santa Maria, the British Kombo, Albreda and the Mac Carthy island; the first is the most important (10.3 sq km; pop. 10,000) and in it is Bathurst, the capital. The remaining territory (about 11,200 sq km) forms the protectorate; the number of residents, difficult to establish exactly, is around 200,000. The Europeans, less than 200, are traders and missionaries. See baglib.com for Gambia sights, UNESCO, climate, and geography.
The Gambia border with the French territories, fixed in 1891, follows for a stretch, to N. and S. of the river, the parallels of 13 ° 36 ‘and 13 ° 10 N., while the whole remaining border line runs at 10 km. from the river; the eastern boundary largely follows the meridian of 13 ° 47 ′ W and cuts the river at 10 km. downstream from Yabu Tenda.
The Gambia was first administered by Sierra Leone, which formally annexed it in 1821; separated in 1843 and reunited with Sierra Leone in 1866, it definitively became a colony of the crown in 1888. The legislative power of the colony and of the protectorate is exercised by a governor assisted by a legislative council and an executive council; the former normally consists of three official and three elected members. Traveling commissioners oversee the indigenous courts, which judge according to the laws and customs of the country.
The configuration of the country offers little interest: outside the main valley and that of two tributaries of the lower Gambia (the Vintang and the Surara Kunda), the country is a plateau that does not exceed 70 m. in height. The coast is only 64 km long. and it is all to the South. of the river: fringed with rocks to the north, it becomes low and sandy to the south; there are no ports except Bathurst. The climatic conditions are better than in the other colonies of West Africa, not only on the coast, which benefits from healthy sea breezes, but also on Mac Carthy Island, where the breezes do not reach. The dry and very pleasant season lasts from November to February; in April and May beneficial sea breezes blow; from June to October there is the rainy season, during which the climate is unhealthy for Europeans. Precipitation is about 1250 mm. at Bathurst, with the maximum in August. October is the hottest month: temperatures above 40 ° in the shade were recorded at Bathurst; at Mac Carthy island it reaches 46 °. Cases of malaria, sleeping sickness and yellow fever still occur, but severe epidemics have become much less frequent.
The fauna of the Gambia does not possess particular characteristics, and is part of the fauna of the western sub-region of the Ethiopian region. Among the Mammals the monkeys are represented by the chimpanzee, by various species of vervets; some lemurids; various bats among the Chiroptera. Among the Rosicanti we will mention the flying squirrels, various species of dormice and mice from the Ethiopian region. Insectivores have several species of macroscelids, potamogals, shrews. Among the Carnivores the lion, various viverre, jackals, protheles. Among the Ungulates, the elephant, the hippopotamus, many antelopes, some gazelles. The Toothless are represented in The Gambia by the short-tailed pangolin; the Sirenids by the manatee. The avifauna is very rich with many species of passerines, with climbers including the helmeted turaco,