TWO MEDICAL EXPERTS clashed in court today over whether the infant girl at the centre of what was Ireland’s first recorded conviction for female genital mutilation (FGM) was actually a victim of the practice.
The mother and father were found guilty of carrying out an act of FGM on their then one-year-old daughter at an address in Dublin on 16 September 2016, following a trial at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court in November 2019.
The 40-year-old man and 30-year-old woman – who are originally from Africa nation but cannot be named to protect the identity of the child – claimed the girl injured herself whilst playing with a toy at her home.
At an appeal hearing against the conviction, Prof Birgitta Essen said a video recording of the child’s genital area indicated the girl was not left with any signs of scarring after she was treated for bleeding in the perineum.
Prof Essen, a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist from Sweden who specialises in FGM, said she would have expected to have seen some scars if FGM had been performed.
However, Prof Sri Paran, the consultant paediatric surgeon who had treated the girl when she was admitted to hospital – later told the Court of Appeal he had cauterised the wound and that was the reason why no scars were visible.
Prof Essen told the court she has 25 years‘ expertise in studying FGM victims from ‘newborn to adulthood’ and had appeared as an expert witness in similar cases in Europe and North America.
In her opinion, the girl at the centre of this case had not been a victim of FGM because her clitoris was still visible.
“When FGM occurs, then clitoris is no longer retractable under the hood,” she said.
Referring to FGM criteria from the World Health Organization, Prof Essen added that the absence of scar tissue in the genital area also indicated that FGM had not been performed.
But Prof Paran, who is also an also an associate professor at Trinity College and UCD, disputed Prof Essen’s interpretation.
The surgeon said his priority had been to stop the bleeding which had been coming from “under the clitoral hood” when the child arrived at theatre.
When examined by counsel for the State, Shane Costelloe SC, about the lack of scarring on the child afterwards, Prof Paran replied that the effect of cauterisation had covered up the scars but “underneath surface, there was scar tissue”.
Although Prof Paran conceded he had no prior experience of FGM, he said he was confident the girl had not injured herself as a result of a fall.
Earlier, counsel for the father, Hugh Hartnett SC, told the three-judge court that problems with the court’s translation service meant his client’s trial had been “unsafe and unfair”.
“It is respectfully submitted that there was a concession by the prosecution that there had been ‘difficulties and shortcomings’ in the translation of testimony,” he said.
‘It is our case shortcomings are never acceptable,” he said.
In one example, Mr Hartnett said a question to the accused about his daughter, when he was asked ‘would you hurt her?’, was translated as ‘do you hate her?’
Mr Hartnett said this was indicative of the translator’s ‘lack of competence’ and that the translator was ‘not so much translating but attempting to put his own view on what the witness wanted to say and putting it to the court’.
Giollaiosa O Lideadha SC, for the child’s mother, said agreed with Mr Hartnett’s submission.
The hearing continues.
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