BBC
A Ugandan woman has become the first person in the UK to be found guilty of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) after she mutilated her three-year-old daughter.
The 37-year-old mother from East London (names withheld for legal reasons) was earlier today convicted and remanded into custody to be sentenced on 8 March, but the judge (Justice Whipple) warned that she is to be handed a lengthy sentence. She wept in the dock as she was convicted after a trial at the Old Bailey.
During the trial, the woman claimed her daughter, then aged three, “fell on metal and it ripped her private parts” after she had climbed to get a biscuit in August 2017.
But Court heard from prosecutors that after mutilating the young girl’s genitals, the mother “coached” her little daughter “to lie to the police so she wouldn’t get caught”.
Court also heard that during investigations of her home by prosecutors, items of witchcraft spells and curses intended to deter police and social workers from investigating were found at the Ugandan woman’s home. Prosecutors said that two cow tongues were “bound in wire with nails and a small blunt knife” embedded in them. Forty limes and other fruit were found with pieces of paper with names written on them stuffed inside, including those of police officers and a social worker involved in the investigation.”These people were to ‘shut up’ and ‘freeze their mouths’,” a prosecutor said. “There was a jar with a picture of a social worker in pepper found hidden behind the toilet in the bathroom,” she added.
The woman’s 43-year-old partner was acquitted by the jury.
In the UK FGM – intentionally altering or injuring the female external genitalia for non-medical reasons – carries a sentence of up to 14 years in jail.
This was only the fourth FGM prosecution brought to court in the UK, and the first to yield a conviction as the previous cases all led to acquittals..