A woman who took a British girl to Kenya to have female genital mutilation has been jailed in the first UK case of its kind.
Amina Noor, 40, took the girl to a ‘clinic’ where she wait outside a private house as the child was mutilated in a horrific procedure.
Details of The Case of Circumcision
Noor, from Harrow, London, had claimed that she thought the girl would be injected or pierced in a procedure known as ‘Gudniin’ – the Arabic word for circumcision.
But medical experts who examined the child found she had suffered severe mutilation of her genitals, which most likely would have caused significant bleeding and extreme pain.
The horror only came to light years later when the girl turned 16 and confided in a teacher.
She Pretended When Approached
When confronted by police, Noor pretended to be ‘shocked and upset’ and claimed she was unaware the victim had been mutilated. She has now been jailed for seven years after being found guilty of assisting a non-UK person to carry out the procedure overseas.
Court Ruling
Mr Justice Bryan, sentencing her to seven years at the Old Bailey on Friday, described the crime as ‘truly horrific and abhorrent’.
He told her: ‘You have been found guilty of encouraging and assisting an act of genital mutilation performed upon a very young and vulnerable child.
‘The long-term consequences of FGM are well known and life changing.
‘Such a procedure is irreversible and the effects last a lifetime – effects the victim may be reluctant to speak out about or even acknowledge.’
Why The Case is Historic
Noor is also only the second in the UK to be convicted under the FGM Act of 2003.
The other successful prosecution was in 2019 when a Ugandan woman from Walthamstow, east London, was jailed for 11 years for cutting a three-year-old girl.
The judge said he hoped the victim’s ‘bravery’ would encourage others to come forward to report incidents.
As The Incident Happened
Noor, aged 22, travelled to the east African country with the toddler in 2006 and took her to a private house where she was subjected to FGM, also known as female circumcision or cutting.
The crime only came to light years later when the girl was 16 and confided in her English teacher at school.
The Victim Had Thought Otherwise
When spoken to, the defendant said she thought the procedure was just an injection and afterwards the girl was ‘happy and able to run around and play’, the court heard.
But when examined in 2019, it emerged that the girl’s clitoris had been completely removed.
Noor appeared ‘shocked and upset’ and said that was not what she thought was going to happen.
