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French court rules in female circumcision case

A 46 year old French woman of Malian origin was set free with a suspended one year prison sentence after she was found guilty of "voluntary blows and injuries leading to mutilations" on young children. She had carried out ritual excisions (or clitoridectomies) on baby girls at the request of immigrant parents who abided by the ancient custom that is still widely practised in sub-Saharan Africa. The parents were acquitted.

Yves Corneloup, president of the Paris Cour d'Assises (criminal court), where the trial was held, complained that no specific legislation has yet been adopted to deal with excision. Excision is usually performed in unsanitary conditions with a knife or a razor blade and sometimes leads to prolonged infection, complications during later childbirth, and even death. Although it counts as a crime because it is violence against children under 15, it has seldom led to trial because most of the estimated thousands of excisions that have been carried out in France are not reported, not even by doctors who routinely screen children under a systematic nationwide maternal and infant surveillance programme. In the cases that have been brought to court, most of the parents and professional excisionists concerned have been set free or received light sentences.

Although some European countries, such as the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Switzerland, have specific legislation against excision and the ritual is known to be practised by African immigrants in Europe, trials seem to have occurred only in France. Twenty or so cases have been brought to court in France, mostly through the efforts of feminist campaigners such as attorney Linda Weil-Curiel, who succeeded last year in having a professional excisionist condemned to five years' imprisonment.

Publicity surrounding the trials and the condemnation of guilty individuals contribute to discouraging the practice, she said, while pretending to ignore its existence encourages its perpetuation. Linda Weil-Curiel said that many judges are reluctant to be seen as interfering with the traditions of immigrants and that most doctors on the maternal and infant surveillance programme fail to report mutilations, either because they do not want to appear hostile to a foreign culture or because they simply do not want to become involved. Failure to report is a breach of ethics and could theoretically lead to sanctions against doctors.

Judges and juries are often nonplussed by such cases because they recognise that parents who request excision have no criminal motivation but are following a custom that reputedly helps girls to become integrated into society and find a husband. Parents - mostly Malians, Senegalese, and Mauritanians - believe that they are doing the right thing and are unaware, or reluctant to accept, that it is illegal.

During this trial Corneloup said that specific legislation was expected as part of the recent reform of the penal code but that it had not emerged. He directed the jury to be lenient because there was no criminal intent.

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