In a first for Switzerland, a court has handed down a sentence for forcing female genital mutilation.

The practice was officially outlawed in Switzerland at the beginning of this week after it was voted in by parliament earlier this year.

The Fribourg cantonal court handed a 54-year-old Somali woman a suspended sentence of 240 hours community service. She had already been once acquitted in 2010.

La Liberté newspaper reports that the woman, a swiss resident for the past 20 years, forced her teenage half-sister to travel to Somalia to be circumcised in 2001.

Even if genital mutilation occurs abroad, under the new law a perpetrator or coercer living in Switzerland must answer to the Swiss legal system. Perpetrators of the crime face up to 10 years in prison.