Second UK conviction for FGM

On 26 October 2023, the Crown Prosecution Service (2023) successfully convicted a woman of assisting female genital mutilation (FGM). This was the first conviction of its kind in UK history.

The woman was found guilty of trafficking a 3-year-old British child to Kenya to be subjected to FGM. Nine years later, the victim confided in a schoolteacher that she had been subjected to FGM and the police were informed. This conviction marks the second FGM conviction in the UK, and the first for assisting a non-UK person to commit FGM against a British resident. This prosecution is unique, as it is the first time a person has been held accountable for a cutting that occurred outside of the UK. Sentencing has not yet been carried out, but should take place later this year.

FGM has been illegal in the UK since 1985, with assisting FGM outside of the UK becoming a criminal offence under the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 (Gov.uk, 2003). It is estimated that there are 200 million women worldwide who have been subjected to FGM (World Health Organization, 2023), equivalent to 5% of the global female population. In the UK, there are an estimated 137 000 women who have experienced FGM and a further 60 000 girls under the age of 15 years old are estimated to be at-risk of FGM in the UK (Macfarlane and Dorkenoo, 2014).