FGM: Woman jailed in UK for aiding child genital mutilation in Kenya

A 40 year old British woman has admitted to handing over a British child for Female Genital Mutilation, FGM, while on a travel to Kenya in 2006.

Amina Noor, the lady, despite the confession has been jailed by the British court in UK.

She also added that the mutilation is done for cultural reasons and was a procedure she herself had undergone as a child.

FGM is still a rampant cultural practice in Africa.

But Noor, Somali Brit knowing full well the pain and legal consequences of the procedure took the three year old to suffer FGM in Africa.

At the Old Bailey, Noor was handed a sentence of seven years in prison.

She was the first person to be convicted of assisting a non-UK person to perform FGM.

She had told the Old Bailey the mutilation was done for cultural reasons and was a procedure she herself had undergone as a child.

During the sentencing earlier, Mr Justice Bryan said this “truly horrific and abhorrent crime” had left the victim’s life “irrevocably altered”.

He added that FGM was a practice that was very widespread in both Somalia and Kenya.

The judge praised the girl’s “confidence to speak to a teacher” and come forward and said he hoped her “courage will inspire other women to do the same”.

The defence told the Old Bailey on Friday that Noor “was influenced at the time in the belief that she was doing what was necessary to be accepted by her culture”.

Prosecutor Deanna Heer KC acknowledged the “cultural pressure” in place, but said that Noor “failed to intervene to protect” the girl.

The victim read out a statement in court, which said that she had been affected by the case being in the “public domain”, reflecting how uncomfortable she felt by “strangers discussing [her] body” publicly.

Girl ‘cried in pain all night’

The victim, who is now aged 21, cannot be identified for legal reasons.

During the trial, the court heard that Noor had taken the girl to a ‘clinic’ via tuk-tuk where she was asked to wait outside a private house as the child was mutilated.

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