Last week a woman was found guilty of taking a three-year-old British child to Kenya for female genital mutilation (FGM). Amina Noor was convicted at the Old Bailey of assisting a non-UK person to carry out the procedure overseas 17 years ago. This landmark conviction, the first of its kind under the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003, shows what risks British girls face. But it also demonstrates that mandatory reporting by teachers and the health sector of any suspected cases — or of girls at risk — is working.
This is something I fought hard for because I underwent FGM abroad at the age of seven, so I know this girl’s pain. When I told my teacher in Manchester, very little could be done to help me or others like me, because there was nowhere for my teacher to report to and at the time it was only illegal to subject girls to FGM in the UK. This was a loophole many of those who supported FGM knew about.
