Court acquittal for FGM and translation concerns in Sweden

This is a translation from Swedish about a mother’s conviction in December 2024 for not protecting her daughter from genital cutting (FGM) and her subsequent acquittal.  And about concerns in regard to Somali translation.

This is strikingly similar to the Irish case where parents had their application to have their case declared a miscarriage of justice heard before three Judges in January 2026. The outcome of these deliberations is still awaited.

Girl suspected of being FGM – mother acquitted in Court of Appeal

Published 23 April 2026

Last winter, the district court sentenced a mother to prison for failing to prevent her daughter from being cut in the genitals. Now the court of appeal has acquitted the mother – citing, among other things, ambiguities in translations of intercepted conversations in Somali.

The Svea Court of Appeal has now acquitted the mother of a girl suspected of having been subjected to female genital mutilation in the summer of 2022 in Södermanland. According to the ruling, the evidence is not sufficient to link the mother to the act.

The incident in question occurred on July 12, 2022. The girl was bleeding heavily from her vagina after what was described as a bicycle accident. She was taken to hospital by ambulance and then underwent emergency surgery.

During questioning, the girl stated that she had fallen off her bicycle and had the bicycle frame between her legs. However, at the hospital, it was noted that the girl had three deep wounds inside her vagina and staff suspected that the whole thing could be a case of genital mutilation – and a preliminary investigation was opened. A year later, the investigation was closed due to lack of evidence.

In 2024, new information came from the family home where two of the parents’ children – including the girl in question – were placed. In an interrogation just over two years after the described bicycle accident, the girl stated that she had been “sewn up” in a mosque. The police also conducted secret wiretaps and in a conversation with a friend, the mother is said to have stated that “they had circumcised” when asked why the girl ended up in hospital.

In December, the District Court sentenced a mother to three years and three months in prison for failing to prevent her daughter from having her genitals cut. However, it could not be determined who had carried out the procedure – which was similar to genital mutilation but was not formally classified as such – on the girl. According to the law, the term genital mutilation only covers damage to the external genitalia.

But the verdict was also criticised. According to the defence, the suspicions against the parents were based on the authorities’ prejudices and lack of knowledge, Dagens ETC reported.

The Court of Appeal is now going against the district court’s ruling from December last year. Several expert witnesses have been heard in the Court of Appeal, and they have made different assessments of the course of events. According to the ruling, there is “much evidence to suggest that the injuries were caused by cutting violence”, but that an alternative explanation for the girl’s injuries cannot be ruled out.

Furthermore, the Court of Appeal rejects the idea that the injuries were the result of some type of genital mutilation. According to the experts who have spoken in the Court of Appeal, there is no practice of genital mutilation anywhere in the world where that type of injury to a girl’s genitals would occur.

The Court of Appeal believes that it can be “stated that the type of injury [the girl] had does not seem to be consistent with any of the commonly occurring variants of genital mutilation”.

The part of the evidence where the mother, during an intercepted conversation, allegedly mentioned that the girl had been circumcised was also rejected by the Court of Appeal. The conversation, which took place in Somali, has been translated by different interpreters who give different assessments of what was said. When the police interpreter previously translated the conversation to “she was circumcised”, another interpreter has translated the content to “no, she was shocked”.