Amina Noor is the first person to be convicted of assisting a non-UK person to perform FGM.
Amina Noor, 40, told the Old Bailey the mutilation is done for cultural reasons and was a procedure she herself had undergone as a child.A woman has been jailed for taking a three-year-old British child to Kenya for female genital mutilation .
The defence told the Old Bailey on Friday that Noor "was influenced at the time in the belief that she was doing what was necessary to be accepted by her culture". During the trial, the court heard that Noor had taken the girl to a 'clinic' via tuk-tuk where she was asked to wait outside a private house as the child was mutilated.When Noor was questioned by police, she denied that anyone had made threats against her to force her to agree to FGM.
Noor described what had been done to the girl as "Sunnah" - meaning "tradition" or "way" in Arabic - and added it was a practice that had gone on for cultural reasons for a long time. Following an examination at University College hospital in 2019, it was found that her clitoris had been completely removed, the court heard.Jurors previously heard how Noor was born in Somalia and moved to Kenya at the age of eight during the civil war in her home country.
She added that "punishments alone won't work" to end FGM and work must be done on the ground in communities.