A woman from Edgware has been jailed for seven years after organising for a three-year-old British girl to undergo female genital mutilation (FGM).
Amina Noor, 39, was convicted of assisting a non-UK citizen to mutilate the genitals of a girl contrary to the FGM Act of 2003 in October last year. She was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment at the old Bailey on Friday, February 16.
The victim only confided in a teacher 10 years after the crime, and police subsequently launched an investigation.
The court surmised that Noor had travelled from Harrow to Kenya with the toddler in 2006 before arranging for FGM to be performed on the child.
In defence, Noor’s lawyers argued that she was under significant cultural and social pressure to have the procedure performed.
The Somali-born Edgware resident, who was granted refugee status in 2003 after the outbreak of civil war in Kenya, said that she did not go to school or receive any formal education.
The Metropolitan Police have stated that the case was the first time in its history that someone has been convicted for assisting in FGM abroad. It is additionally only the second time in history that someone has been convicted of FGM since it first became illegal in 1985.
According to The Vavengers, a charity campaigning to end gender-based violence, an estimated 137,000 women in this country are survivors of FGM.
A spokesperson for the charity said: “This historic conviction is a breakthrough in holding FGM traffickers accountable, demonstrating that the UK supports survivors and [that we] will not hesitate to prosecute persecutors of FGM.”
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