Amina Noor: woman found guilty of handing over 3-year-old girl for FGM during Kenya trip

In the first conviction of its kind, a woman has been found guilty of handing over a young girl for a female genital mutilation (FGM) procedure during a trip to Kenya around 17 years ago.

Amina Noor, 39, was convicted of assisting a non-UK person to carry out the procedure following a trial at the Old Bailey. She was convicted under the FGM Act of 2003. To date, only one other successful prosecution has taken place, when a Ugandan woman from Walthamstow, east London, was jailed for 11 years in 2019 for cutting a three-year-old girl.

Senior crown prosecutor Patricia Strobino welcomed Noor’s conviction saying: “This kind of case will hopefully encourage potential victims and survivors of FGM to come forward, safe in the knowledge that they are supported, believed and also are able to speak their truth about what’s actually happened to them. It will also send a clear message to those prospective defendants or people that want to maintain this practice that it doesn’t matter whether they assist or practise or maintain this practice within the UK, or overseas, they are likely to be prosecuted.”

She added: “Part of the challenge of this type of offence is the fact that these types of offences occur in secrecy. Within specific communities within the UK, although these offences and practices are prevalent, it’s often very difficult to get individuals to come forward to explain the circumstances of what’s happened to them because there was a fear that they may be excluded or pushed away or shunned, isolated from their community.”

The incident itself took place in 2006, however the crime was only reported years later when the girl was 16 and she confided in her English teacher. Noor told the court that when she took the child, who is now 21-years-old but cannot be named for legal reasons, to a private home for the procedure, she thought it was just an injected and that the girl was “happy and able to run around and play” afterwards. However, following an examination in 2019, it was found that the girl's entire clitoris had been removed.

Prosecutor Deanna Heer KC told the court: “She was asked whether, when she arrived at the clinic or even before then, she felt she did not want it to happen. She said, ‘Yeah I thought about it but then, you know, got it done’.” While Ms Heer agreed that it was a common practice in the defendant's community, she added: “Not only was the procedure carried out upon (the girl), the excision of the clitoris, a very common type of FGM, but the defendant had been discussing precisely the kind of FGM before she took (the girl) to that clinic.”

Jaswant Narwal, CPS national lead for honour-based abuse, female genital mutilation and forced marriage, said: “We are clear there is no place for this unacceptable practice in society. We will continue to work tirelessly with our partners to safeguard and support victims of FGM and bring perpetrators to justice.”