Woman jailed after taking British girl, 3, for female genital mutilation in Kenya in landmark case
A woman who handed over a British girl for female genital mutilation in Kenya has been jailed in the first British case of its kind.
Amina Noor, 39, took the three-year-old to the so-called 'clinic' in a tuk-tuk and waited outside while she was cut.
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The horror only came to light years later when the girl turned 16 and confided in a teacher.
When confronted with PoliceNoor pretended to be 'shocked and upset' and claimed she did not know the victim had been mutilated.
She has now spent seven years in prison after being found guilty of assisting a non-British person to carry out the procedure abroad.
The conviction was the first of its kind among the FGM Act of 2003 and carries a maximum sentence of 14 years.
Judge Bryan described the crime as “truly heinous and abhorrent”.
He said he hoped the victim's “courage” would encourage others to come forward and report similar attacks.
During a harrowing trial, jurors heard that Noor traveled to Kenya with the girl in 2006.
She claimed she believed the girl would be injected or pierced in a practice known as “Gudniin” – the Arabic word for circumcision.
Noor said that despite the girl crying during the “procedure,” she was “happy and able to run around and play.”
Medical experts later discovered that her genitals had been severely mutilated, likely causing significant bleeding and extreme pain.
Noor was born in Somalia, but moved to Mombasa, Kenya, at the age of eight, at the start of the civil war.
She came to Britain as a refugee in 2003 and became a British citizen two years later.
Noor claimed in her testimony that she feared she would be “cursed” and “ostracized” in her community if she did not allow the girl to procedure.
The defendant said: 'I was told it would only be five minutes, nothing will happen, just stay outside and she will come back out.
“She said something is going to happen, a drop of blood, it's nothing, nothing is going to go wrong.”
FGM – the facts
FGM is usually performed in a twisted act of religious piety.
It is routinely practiced by obscure Islamic sects or people with ties to African tribes who call it sunna, gudniin, halalays, tahur, megrez and khitan, among others.
FGM is usually performed on girls between childhood and the age of 15, usually before the onset of puberty.
It is very painful and can seriously damage their health and cause long-term problems with sex, childbirth and mental health.
It is illegal in Britain and considered a form of child abuse.
FGM has been a criminal offense in Great Britain since 1985.
In 2003, it also became a criminal offense for British nationals or permanent residents of the United Kingdom to take their child abroad to undergo female genital mutilation.
Anyone found guilty of this crime faces a maximum prison sentence of fourteen years.
Noor, from Harrow, north-west London, was granted conditional bail ahead of sentencing on December 20.
To date, there has only been one other successful prosecution for FGM in Britain.
In 2019 there was a mother found guilty of hiring a 'witch' to cut off her three-year-old daughter at home in Walthamstow, east London.