FGM: Spanish court sentences Gambian couple over Female Genital Mutilation

A Spanish court has confirmed 12 year prison sentences on a Gambian couple in Vilanova i la Gertrú, Barcelona for circumcising their two daughters who are minors. According to the details of the verdict which reached. The Supreme Court in Barcelona rejected an appeal brought to overturn the verdict against the wife woman referred to as Binta S and the husband called T Sekou.

 

The Catalan court had stated that the couple who has been living in Spain for twenty years was guilty of perpetrating female genital mutilation as charged.

 

“Clitoridectomy is not culture, it is mutilation and discrimination against women” the court ruled.

 

Lawyers for the couple appealed the Barcelona court’s judgment claiming, among other reasons that the parents were not involved in the circumcision of their daughters.

 

However, the Supreme Court reiterated that although it could not determine the exact time the circumcisions took place, they had received the full blessing of the parents who were aware of the acts carried out in Spain between July 2010 and January 2011.

 

The court pointed out that respect for the customs and traditions of other cultures “has limits where aberrant and unacceptable behaviors occur for our Spanish cultural environment.”

 

FGM is a burning issue in The Gambia where the state remains ambivalent over calls to ban the practice.