Doctor on first FGM charge in America
A DOCTOr has been charged with carrying out female genital mutilation on two seven-year-old girls in the first case of its kind in the US.
Jumana Nagarwala is accused of conducting the barbaric operations on the girls that left them scarred and barely able to walk.
The FBI has also identified other children who may have suffered FGM at the hands of Nagarwala between 2005 and 2007.
FGM is common in Africa and the Middle east in the belief that it prepares a girl for marriage.
Prosecutors said that ‘despite her oath to care for her patients, Dr Nagarwala is alleged to have performed horrifying acts of brutality on the most vulnerable victims.’
The first girl told the FBI that the operation was to ‘get the germs out’ of her, while the second told investigators she had to ‘get a shot’ that left her in agony.
The criminal complaint said: ‘her parents told her that the procedure is a secret and that she is not supposed to talk about it. [The girl] said that after the procedure, she could barely walk, and that she felt pain all the way down to her ankle’.
Nagarwala, 44, appeared at court in Detroit, Michigan, and faces up to ten years in jail if convicted.
She has denied performing the FGM operations.
The case comes as Britain has failed to prosecute a single FGM case despite the practice being outlawed 30 years ago.