A girl who allegedly underwent female genital mutilation in Australia imagined she was a princess in a garden as the procedure happened, a court has heard.
Three people are being prosecuted over the alleged FGM of the girl, known as C1, and her younger sister, known as C2. A woman known as KM is charged over allegedly carrying out the procedure while the mother, A2, is charged with being present while it is carried out.
The supreme court of New South Wales was played a police interview with C1 which took place in August 2012. In the interview C1 told a social worker and a police officer about undergoing the “khatna”.
Asked if she knew what it was, the girl responded that she did, because she had undergone it herself.
C1 began the interview in chatty mood but when khatna came up she became very quiet and said in almost a whisper: “I don’t want to talk about that.”
When asked why, she responded: “I just don’t.”
After some prompting she told the women about being taken to a house in Wollongong to take part in the ceremony with a woman she did not know. Her mother and grandmother were present.
“The person who did it told me to close my eyes and imagine a place I like ... she asked if I liked gardens and I said gardens and she told me to imagine I was a princess in the gardens,” C1 said in the interview.
“And then she did it, she told me to think [about being a princess in a garden] so I wouldn’t feel it so much, but I did feel it a bit.”
Asked what she felt, C1 responded: “It hurt”.
Afterward C1 was given a lemonade on the bed and then had a shower.
“I felt happy because it was all over,” she said.
Asked why she had to do the khatna C1 said “because it was part of our culture and it has to happen to every girl”.
C1 will give evidence on Wednesday and watched the recording of her police interview via video link on Tuesday afternoon.
C1 and her younger sister C2, were seven when they allegedly underwent FGM between 2010 and 2012. A high-ranking member of the clergy in the Dawoodi Bohra Shia Muslim community which the family are apart of, Shabbir Mohammedbhai Vaziri, is also standing trial, accused of helping KM and A2 after the fact.
The girls are now aged nine and 11.
The defence for Vaziri and A2, Robert Sutherland SC, said he would not dispute there was a ceremony for the girls attended by only women. But he denied their genitals were mutilated or cut, instead arguing they were simply touched and the girls’ eyes were closed the entire time.
Sutherland said medical evidence would be heard that there was no actual evidence of injury, but there was a possibility there could have been injury that had healed, or a small amount of tissue could have been removed from the clitoris.
“The issue as to whether there was any injury is at the forefront of this trial not whether the mother, grandmother gathered together, not whether someone read from the Koran, there was certainly a ceremony but you will not be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt there was any injury to these girls,” he said.
The defence for KM, Stuart Bouveng, said she had touched the girls’ genital area with a pair of forceps.
“There is no dispute there were other female family members present at the time, the only real issue is to determine beyond reasonable doubt whether or not each of the girls had their clitoris’ mutilated by, there is a concern whether or not there was any actual bodily harm inflicted on the girls,” he said.