Case in Great Britain

Girl’s genitals mutilated: Woman sentenced

A doctor explains genital mutilation to two girls in Cairo.

(Bild: APA/AFP/Mohamed el-Shahed)

A woman in the UK has been jailed for taking a little girl to Kenya to be genitally mutilated. The Old Bailey Criminal Court in London sentenced the 40-year-old woman to seven years in prison on Friday.

The woman had traveled to Kenya with the then three-year-old girl in 2006. There she had taken the toddler to a private home, where the child then became a victim of female circumcision, also known as "female genital mutilation (FGM)".

Girl confided in teacher
The crime only came to light years later when the girl, aged 16, confided in a teacher at school. During the procedure, the girl's entire clitoris had been cut away.

According to estimates by the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 200 million girls and women worldwide have had their genitals circumcised. The procedure is banned in a number of countries, but is sometimes still practiced.

This is the first conviction in such a case. A representative of the London police said that he hoped the sentence would act as a real deterrent. Even more, he hoped that more attention would be drawn to the issue and that victims would know that they could get support and help.