A woman has been charged at the Central Criminal Court of England and Wales for participating in the Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) of a three-year-old British girl in Kenya.
The girl, who is now 21, revealed the alleged atrocity when she was 16, to her English teacher at school.
The accused woman, who now lives in London, was charged with aiding a non-UK individual to mutilate the British girl’s genitalia in 2006, during a trip to Kenya.
At the onset of the trial, the prosecution maintained that the woman, upon questioning, mentioned that an injection was involved in the alleged procedure and that the girl seemed upbeat and okay afterward.
However, according to the prosecution, this contracted the accused woman’s initial account in which she had described her presence at the clinic where the procedure was done on the minor.
She denied being inside the operation room at the clinic but said that afterward, she noted the girl was in distress and that she sobbed all night.
Later on, as per the prosecutor, police interviewed the woman who allegedly admitted to having knowledge of the mutilation.
According to the prosecutor, the woman termed the act as ‘Sunnah’, which means ‘the way’ in Arabic, also calling it a long-practiced cultural tradition.
The prosecutor poked holes at the woman’s different accounts and her denial of knowledge concerning the intention of the procedure.
She argued that the woman should have questioned whether the people performing the procedure were qualified doctors, and that she should have checked the girl’s wound.
In 2019, an examination revealed that the girl’s clitoris had been completely detached.
The prosecution's opening statements also revealed the woman’s origin. Apparently, she was born in Somalia and moved to Kenya at eight years old during the civil war in her home country.
She then moved to the UK at age 16 and was later granted British Citizenship.
