On January 25, 2018, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) issued its decision in K.Y.M. v. Denmark, concluding that Denmark violated the International Convention on the Rights of the Child by failing to consider the best interests of a child when assessing the risk of the child being subjected to female genital mutilation if returned to Somalia with her mother. The CRC highlighted interpretations from its general comments to note that “State parties have an obligation under article 19 of the Convention to prohibit, prevent and respond to all forms of physical violence against children, including harmful practices such as female genital mutilation,” and that “State parties shall not return a child to a country where there are substantial grounds for believing that he or she would be subjected to a real risk of irreparable harm.” The CRC held that the deportation proceedings against the mother and daughter did not take proper safeguards to ensure the child’s wellbeing upon return and that it violated Articles 3 (best interests of the child) and 19 (protection from violence) of the Convention. The case marks the first decision on the merits decided by the CRC since the Committee was authorized to receive complaints in 2014 under the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on a Communications Procedure.