 It took the deaths of two girls in 1982, one of them three months old, for that attitude to change.In 1991 a French court ruled that the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees offered protection to FGM victims; the decision followed an asylum application from Aminata Diop, who fled an FGM procedure in Mali.The practice is outlawed by several provisions of France's penal code that address bodily harm causing permanent mutilation or torture.