A 47-year-old man who became the first person to be convicted in England and Wales of conspiracy to commit female genital mutilation (FGM) received a four-and-a-half year prison term on Thursday.

Emad Kaky, formerly a doctorate student at the University of Nottingham in central England, made arrangements for a young girl to travel from the UK to Iraq, where he“clearly” intended that she undergo FGM, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said.

A jury at Nottingham Crown Court found him guilty of conspiracy to commit FGM and forced marriage following a two-week trial.

On sentencing, judge Nirmal Shant called Kaky’s planned actions “barbaric”.

“When considering the seriousness of the offence I look not just at the harm that occurred, it didn’t in this case but, in fact, the intended harm,” she said.

“You made concerted efforts to make sure this happened. This offence calls for a deterrent sentence. What you did, what you had planned, was barbaric.”

The CPS, which brings prosecutions in England and Wales, said the 47-year-old’s conviction was the “first of its kind” in England and Wales.

A woman was jailed in February for having assisted in the genital mutilation of a three-year-old girl during a trip to Kenya and another woman in 2019 was jailed for 11 years for cutting a three-year-old girl.

They were the only people to be convicted under the FGM Act of 2003 before Kaky’s case, and he is the first to be found guilty of conspiracy to commit FGM.

“This has been a landmark prosecution, not just because it is the first conviction of its kind, but for the message it sends to people who may be vulnerable to this horrific form of abuse,” said the CPS’s Jaswant Narwal.

“Where there is evidence that people have plotted to commit these offences, they face prosecution, whether or not they succeed,” she added.

Kaky, from Swansea in southern Wales, booked and paid for the girl’s trip while he was living in Nottingham but a witness uncovered his plans and contacted police.

When challenged, Kaky called FGM “normal”, his trial was told.

The practiceis common in some African, Middle Eastern and Asian countries and involves the partial or total removal of a young girl’s clitoris and labia.

The risky procedure is often carried out under unsterile conditions and can lead to severe complications.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 200 million girls and women alive today have been subjected to the practice. (AFP)