A woman feared being “cursed” if she did not hand over a three-year-old British girl for female genital mutilation (FGM), a court has heard.
Amina Noor is on trial at London’s Old Bailey, accused of assisting a non-UK person to mutilate the child’s genitalia in Kenya.
The girl, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, was subjected to FGM on a trip to the east African country in 2006, jurors were told.
Giving evidence on Friday as part of her defence in the trial, Somali-born Noor, 39, said she would have been “disowned and cursed” by community members if she did not take part.
According to UN figures, 94% of females of Somali origin living in Kenya undergo FGM.
Noor said: “I didn’t know whether this was going to be something that is harming [the girl] but I did not want to allow it, whatever it might be.
“I was told I would be cursed if I refused.”
She told jurors she “felt pain” over the threat, saying: “That was a pressure I had no power to do anything about.”
It is alleged the toddler travelled with the defendant and another woman in a tuk-tuk to a private house in Kenya, where the mutilation took place.
Noor, from Harrow, northwest London, denies the charge against her.
There was no dispute in the case that the girl had been subjected to FGM outside the UK by a Kenyan woman, nor that the alleged victim was a UK citizen.
Girl confided in teacher
The alleged offence came to light in 2018 after the girl, who by then was aged 16, confided in her English teacher at school.
When Noor was questioned by police, she denied that anyone had made threats against her to force her to agree to FGM.
But in her defence in her trial, Noor said she had been told she would be disowned.
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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 was 16 when she came to the UK and was later granted British citizenship.
The trial continues.
