A female genital mutilation survivor who works with the NSPCC has spoken out to raise awareness of the practice.

Following the first female genital mutilation guilty conviction of a Walthamstow mother of a three-year-old girl on Friday, survivor Salimata Badji Knight has spoken about why the practice is a form of child abuse.

The accused couple, a Ugandan woman, 37, and her Ghanaian partner, 43, from Walthamstow were accused of cutting their daughter over the 2017 summer bank holiday.

They were arrested after they brought their daughter to hospital with serious injuries which doctors later said were consistent with female genital mutilation.

In a 999 call and subsequent accounts given to officers, the mother said that the victim injured herself after falling onto an open kitchen cupboard door from a counter top at her home.

The defendants, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, denied female genital mutilation and an alternative charge of failing to protect a girl from risk of genital mutilation.

The woman was found guilty on Friday after a trial which started at the Old Bailey on January 14.

She will be sentenced at the same court on March 8.

Her co-defendant was found not guilty of the same offence.

Survivor Salimata Badji Knight was aged five when she was forced to undergo female genital cutting on the pretext of visiting her grandmother in Senegal.

The event left her feeling "angry and alone as thought she could not speak about the taboo issue."

She had assumed every girl was cut and it was not until her late teens that she realised she was a victim of female genital cutting.

She is now a campaigner and has saved around 50 girls from the harmful effects of female genital mutilation - some of which has left her unable to have children.

She said: "I am delighted there has finally been a conviction in an female genital mutilation trial in the UK. I remember the day I was cut as a little girl, I remember the fear, the pain and later, the humiliation and despair. I can only imagine what this little girl suffered at the hands of her mother.

"While we know female genital cutting is still prevalent in practicing communities in the UK, with families going abroad to get their girls cut, this case is further evidence that this practice is happening here, on the UK soil.

"It is very important to finally see a prosecution in an female genital mutilation case. This landmark victory in the eradication of FGM/C should send a message to everyone: this practice hurts little girls, and should be stopped, by the communities themselves, or by the threat of courts.

"My advice to anyone concerned about a child is to contact the NSPCC Female Genital Mutilation Helpline (0800 028 3550). They have counsellors trained to be culture-sensitive, who will help you and advise you."