Australia’s first prosecution of female genital mutilation (FGM) has been labelled “much ado about nothing” by the defence for two of the people accused of being involved in the crime, who claim that no mutilation occurred.
The trial of Shabbir Mohammedbhai Vaziri, a woman known as KM and the mother of two girls who allegedly underwent the alleged mutilation started in the New South Wales supreme court on Monday.
The mother, known as A2, is accused of arranging for two of her daughters to undergo FGM when they were each seven years old between 2010 and 2012. She is also accused of being present when the woman known as KM did the procedure.
Shabbir Mohammedbhai Vaziri, a high ranking member of the clergy in the Dawoodi Bohra Shia Muslim community, is accused of helping the two women after the fact by telling people interviewed by police to say they did not believe in or practice FGM in Australia.
Robert Sutherland SC, who is defending A2 and Vaziri, told the jury that in medical examination there was no evidence of scarring on the genitalia of the two girls and their external genitalia “appeared normal”.
“The defence will be saying what took place was not a criminal offence, it was not an injury, and it was certainly not mutilation of these girls,” he said.
“Despite the investigative forces of the state being brought because of suspicion that something barbaric happened ... this was ultimately much ado about nothing.”
Sutherland said the girls had instead taken part in ceremonies which were “secret women’s business”.
The court heard that police bugged the two family cars and phones of the parents of the two girls and also placed listening devices in the waiting room where police initially conducted interviews with the parents. Hours of recorded conversations will be played to the court during the trial.
Crown prosecutor Nanette Williams said the girls were first interviewed by police at their primary school on 29 August 2013.
The older girl, known as C1, was asked by police if she knew the term “khatna” and responded it was when “they give you a little cut down there”.
The girl said she knew the term because it had happened to her and described it to police.
"[C1] recalled being taken into a bedroom and placed on a bed, she described before [the] procedure that she felt she was nervous, she was told to imagine a place she liked. She imagined [herself] as a princess in a garden,” Williams said in her opening remarks.
“She said it hurt when her private part was cut. She said she felt happy when it was over.”
C1 said her younger sister, C2, had also undergone the procedure.
During an interview C2 told the investigators that a procedure was conducted in her parents’ bedroom. She said she was lying down on bed when it happened and “felt hurting in her bottom.”
Afterwards her father told her it was ok.
The girls were each seven years old when the alleged FGM happened and are now nine and 11.
Williams told the court that police listening devices recorded A2 talking to her daughters when she picked them up from school the day of the interviews.
She asked them what they had told police and then according to Williams, A2 responded “Yes, OK, you told them everything, I told you not to say to anyone. Now we are in trouble because of this, I told you this was a big secret, we told you my child this is a big secret, never tell anyone”.
The trio are being prosecuted under NSW laws banning FGM. This is the first time people charged with carrying out FGM have faced a trial in Australia.
The trial is expected to run for six weeks.