Pamela Fraher has spent the past year investigating Ireland's first and only prosecution for female genital mutilation (FGM).
Ahead of the broadcast of an RTÉ Investigates and Documentary on One programme on Wednesday night, she reflects on what she uncovered while examining how the State handles this sensitive and complex issue.
Returning from a work trip to Sweden, something stopped me in my tracks at Dublin airport.
It was a sign for 'Operation LimeLight', a campaign raising awareness about FGM and urging people to report suspected cases or girls at risk.
What surprised me wasn’t the warning about the heinous practice, that is illegal in Ireland, but the absence of any similar notices pertaining to more common forms of abuse in this country, such as sex trafficking, drug smuggling or human trafficking.
In 2011, TD and now Labour Party leader Ivana Bacik introduced legislation to criminalise the practice of FGM, which eventually became the Criminal Justice (Female Genital Mutilation) Act 2012. It carries a maximum sentence of 14 years.
That legislation has been invoked once, and that case was overturned on appeal. It was also that case that brought me to Sweden.
The RTÉ Investigates and Documentary on One podcast series and television documentary, First Conviction, follows the story of the first couple in the State to be convicted of FGM and examines the potential miscarriage of justice they are currently fighting through the courts.
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In the wake of that first prosecution and the subsequent release of the couple from prison, RTÉ has been speaking to experts to get a sense of how common FGM is across Europe and the best way to tackle the practice.
FGM is defined by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as "all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons."
It has been carried out on more than 230 million girls and women alive today in 30 countries across Africa, the Middle East and Asia, where FGM is predominantly practiced.
FGM is usually carried out on young girls between infancy and age 15, often before puberty starts. Female genital mutilation is classified into four major types, ranging in severity.
The WHO states that treatment of health complications stemming from FGM is estimated to cost health systems globally US$ 1.4 billion (€1.2bn) per year, a number expected to rise unless urgent action is taken towards its abandonment.
There is a good chance you have never heard of FGM, or if you have, you might not know exactly what it means or why it is carried out, but with increasing numbers of FGM survivors arriving to Ireland, this may be an issue that will come into sharper focus.
Somali-Irish activist Ifrah Ahmed is a survivor of FGM who now campaigns against the practice.
Her advocacy on this issue contributed to the enactment of Ireland’s legislation to outlaw FGM.
At the age of just eight years old, Ms Ahmed was severely injured in Somalia by an act of female genital mutiliation. She told RTÉ that FGM is "something highly practiced in the community widely."
"If you look at the mothers, 100% they believe the sunnah type, type one [FGM], that they're 100% committed and they believe it," she said.
Sunnah or type one circumcision involves the removal of all or part of the clitoris.
Because of these strongly held beliefs in Somalia, Ms Ahmed fled her country of origin as a teenager, arriving to Ireland where she was subsequently granted asylum.
Ms Ahmed explained that she became an activist for young girls because of what happened to her.
"There are many women like me who are living with the consequences of female genital mutilation," she said.
A leading voice in the global End FGM Campaign, Ms Ahmed continues to empower survivors and raise awareness of the need to bring the practice of FGM to an end.
The First Conviction podcast series and television documentary examine Ireland's first and only ever convictions for FGM - convictions which were subsequently quashed.
During the original sentencing of the couple back in January 2020, Judge Elma Sheahan sentenced the father to five-and-a-half years' imprisonment and the mother to four years and nine months.
Despite this result, the Director for Public Prosecutions (DPP) made an application for an undue leniency appeal, arguing that the judge's sentence was too lenient and that the parents' sentences should be increased.
Sweden
Earlier this year I travelled to Malmo in Sweden, where FGM has been outlawed for 40 years.
I met Professor Sara Johnsdotter, a medical anthropologist who has been researching FGM for over 30 years.
Prof Johnsdotter believes that Africans largely leave this practice behind when they move to their adopted countries in Europe.
"That's a very widespread idea in the public discussion that even when people have lived here for many years and migrated from FGM practicing countries, people assume that they just keep their tradition alive, even though there is very little evidence.
"I think it's a mix of expecting people to adhere to cultural traditions, but also a fear that what if things are going on in secret that we don't know about, we need to protect these girls from harmful cultural practices."
Prof Johnsdotter thinks it can be problematic when European countries introduce specific FGM laws as they apply only to certain ethnic communities.
"The result is that these communities are under constant suspicion and with the assumptions that this is going on in hiding," Prof Johnsdotter said.
"The view of the police and prosecutor will be now it's just a matter of finding the illegal cases. So yes, they often rush into action because they believe that they will identify an illegal case."
A clear example of this is a 2004 case in Uppsala, a city near Stockholm.
A family there had interactions with the health service when it emerged that one of their daughters was going to travel to East Africa for the summer.
That triggered suspicion from a health care worker that this might be a situation where the girl could be subjected to FGM.
The health care worker asked if it would be possible to see the girl after she returned from the trip. When her mother refused, it resulted in the health service filing a report with the social welfare committee.
After the family returned from their trip, the 11-year-old girl was taken, crying, from her classroom by police to be forcibly examined in a hospital for signs of FGM.
The examination proved that FGM had not taken place, and the girl's parents made a complaint to the Equality Ombudsman, who in turn successfully sued the Uppsala Municipality on behalf of the family.
Prof Johnsdotter told RTÉ the case is evidence of the need to strike a balance between protection and respect.
"FGM does happen, and there are still girls at risk. They are just not as many as we think they are."
"We need to keep a balance there. We need an alertness in society to protect those girls who are really at risk of FGM. But we need to do it in a balanced, respectful way that doesn't do harm to the girls themselves that we want to protect and their families and communities."
FGM legislation
Even though Sweden has had legislation outlawing FGM for the past 40 years, there has yet to be a single successful prosecution for an act of FGM committed in the country.
This is a trend widely reflected across Europe, despite a huge increase in immigrants from African countries.
The topic of enacting specific FGM legislation is filled with opposing views. For some, specific legislation acts as a declaration of political will and showcases a government's commitment towards ending what is widely considered a barbaric practice.
Other experts suggest that the use of such legislation can create greater stigma around certain communities, as everyone should be equal in the eyes of the law.
Associate Professor at the UCD Sutherland School of Law, Niamh Howlin, states that in Europe, FGM is considered to be a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights and the Istanbul Protocol on Violence Against Women. She says efforts to prosecute the practice have been ongoing for decades.
"Female genital mutilation is internationally recognised as a practice that breaches the human rights of women and girls. FGM takes place in different countries for different cultural and religious reasons.
"Most countries in Europe have passed specific legislation to tackle FGM. For example, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Cyprus, and the UK."
Prof Howlin added that outside of Europe, specific legislation has also been passed in Australia, New Zealand, and the United States.
"The law in Ireland here is the Criminal Justice Female Genital Mutilation Act of 2012. That makes it an offence to carry out FGM, to facilitate FGM, or to procure an act of FGM. It also makes it an offence to facilitate bringing women and girls outside the State to undergo FGM. A person could be sentenced up to 14 years in prison."
But Prof Howlin explained that there are problems with the FGM legislation in Ireland, and some of these are common to FGM laws in other European jurisdictions.
"FGM laws are well-intentioned, but they can have unintended negative consequences for the very people that they're designed to protect," she said.
The legal processes can perpetuate stereotypes, discrimination, and social exclusion – this, Prof Howlin added, is called "structural injustice".
"If we didn't have the FGM Act 2012, it would still be possible to prosecute acts of FGM carried out in Ireland," Prof Howlin said.
"Under the Children Act 2001, we could prosecute for child cruelty and under the Non-Fatal Offences against the Person Act 1997, we could prosecute for assault causing serious harm. And the penalties for those offences would be seven years for child cruelty or up to life imprisonment for assault causing serious harm," she added.
However, Prof Howlin said the FGM Act also criminalises travelling outside the state to secure FGM.
"That would be more difficult to prosecute under other legislation. It's also worth pointing out that having specific legislation against FGM sends a very clear message that this is not a practice that's accepted in this country."
Miscarriage of justice
Just a few weeks ago, the couple at the centre of Ireland's first and only FGM case, received a hearing date for a certificate of miscarriage of justice application.
This is significant in many ways. For a start, their 2019 trial was the first of its kind in Irish history, and their 2021 successful appeal marked the first time translation issues contributed to a successful circuit court appeal.
But, also, successful applications for certificates of miscarriage of justice are very rare in Ireland.
The couple is seeking this application because in 2024, the DPP entered a nolle prosequi in respect of all charges, meaning that the State was no longer proceeding with the prosecution, but the couple were not acquitted.
This application will now be heard on the 22 and 23 January 2026.
What has become clear since I started working on this story 12 months ago is that this family's story is not a one-off when we look to Europe.
While in France, according to the End FGM European Network, more than 30 cases have been tried and over 100 parents and practitioners have been convicted since the 1980s, other countries have faced cases where the families involved have strongly contested the allegations.
In Denmark, one family endured an experience similar to the parents in Ireland’s case just a year before they were accused of facilitating FGM.
It started in 2015, when, similar to the Swedish example, a schoolteacher suspected that the parents of two young girls had subjected them to FGM during a family holiday to Kenya.
The couple were arrested and found guilty of FGM, and despite the eldest daughter, who is now a young woman, insisting that no such procedure ever occurred, and backing up her statements with testimony from four distinguished gynecologists, her mother and father's names have still not been cleared.
Both parents were sentenced to one and a half years in prison, but unlike in the Irish case, they were allowed to serve at separate times.
The family has also never received a direct apology from the authorities.
A decade later, the couple’s eldest daughter continues to fight for justice.
The woman spoke to RTÉ about the trauma of this experience on her family, her mental health and daily life.
"It was incredibly stressful, and I had a hard time also focusing on anything, especially at school. Also, I became depressed as I had to deal with lies that were also spreading about our family, and, you know, rumours also started around and in my school. And it felt like the, yeah, I guess the truth didn't matter, and people were believing these, you know, false accusations."
She stressed that authorities had to consider each case individually, not to merely jump to conclusions based on stereotypes surrounding different cultures.
"Just because my family or another family comes from Africa or a Muslim country, doesn't mean that they're involved in harmful practices like circumcision. We need to work toward a society where we are judged for who we are instead of where we come from," she added.
The family is now fighting to have their case reopened.
"We have not given up. We feel that authorities need to admit the mistake and clear our family's name once and for all. It is frustrating that it has taken so long, but we won't stop pushing until we get the justice that we deserve."
Remarking on the Irish case, the woman said she hoped the couple would continue their fight to receive a certificate of miscarriage of justice.
"I know how it is. I know how they're probably also frustrated," she said.
"I think that they're also going through hard times. So, I just hope that they don't give up. And also, to set an example that not every person who comes from an African country is going to do things like that to their kid.
"So, I hope they keep fighting and don't give up, even though I know how painful it is."
Additional reporting by Anna Joyce.
RTÉ Investigates: First Conviction will broadcast on Wednesday 12 November at 9:35pm on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player. Documentary produced/directed by Philip Gallagher.
