U.S. doctor, Jumana Nagarwala, has been arrested and charged with carrying out female genital mutilation on young girls in a case which is believed to be the first of its kind in the country.
Prosecutors said on Thursday that Dr Nagarwala, 44, had been performing the practice on girls between the age of six and eight for 12 years.
If found guilty, she faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Female genital mutilation is a widely condemned practice and was made illegal in the U.S. in 1996.
Prosecutors in Michigan say they believe it is the first case of its kind brought under the federal law.
Dr Nagarwala appeared in a U.S. federal court in Detroit on Thursday and was remanded into custody until at least Monday, a spokeswoman for the US attorney’s office said.
In a voluntary interview with investigators after her case became known, Dr Nagarwala denied being involved in any such procedure.
But prosecutors claimed that the Indian-born doctor had performed “horrifying acts of brutality on the most vulnerable victims”.
They further stated that some patients had travelled to her practise from outside the state of Michigan and were told not to talk about the procedure.
“Female genital mutilation constitutes a particularly brutal form of violence against women and girls. It is also a serious federal felony in the United States,” acting U.S. attorney Daniel Lemisch told local media.
“The practice has no place in modern society and those who perform on minors will be held accountable under federal law.”
In 2006, an Ethiopian immigrant was jailed for 10 years for aggravated battery and cruelty to children for mutilating his two-year-old daughter five years earlier with a pair of scissors.
In 2012 the US authorities said more than 500,000 women and girls in the country had either been subjected to female genital mutilation or were at risk of it.
About 200 million girls and women around the world have suffered some form of genital mutilation, the UN says, with half living in Egypt, Ethiopia and Indonesia.
