United Kingdom: seven years in prison for the excision of a little girl abroad, an unprecedented conviction

Amina Noor, a 40-year-old British woman, was convicted on Friday of placing a little girl in the hands of a woman who circumcised her during a trip to Kenya. An unprecedented conviction in the country.

The Old Bailey Criminal Court, London. Getty Images - Peter Dazeley

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With our correspondent in London

,

Sidonie Gaucher

It took a lot of courage for the victim to put together her case and denounce such facts

,” declared the judge, pronouncing the sentence of seven years in prison against Amina Noor, declared guilty last October by a popular jury for having contributed to a three-year-old girl undergoing female genital mutilation (FGM).   

In 2006, the Somali-born Londoner, then 22, took a three-year-old girl to a so-called "

clinic

" in

Kenya

to undergo genital mutilation.

Also readConsequences of excision on women's health

Threat

During the investigation, she seemed "

shocked

" to learn what the little girl had suffered before admitting to having been threatened with being "

cursed

" and "

disowned

" by her community if she did not take part in the excision of the little girl.

In 2019, a Ugandan woman living in east London was already sentenced to eleven years in prison for having herself circumcised a three-year-old girl.

With this conviction, Amina Noor becomes the first person of British nationality convicted of helping to carry out female circumcision abroad, under a 2003 law on genital mutilation which carries a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.

Also read Excision: “There is a desire to control the bodies and sexuality of women and young girls”

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