A Malian woman who said she feared genital mutilation and forced marriage if she were returned to her home country by the United States got relief this week.

A federal immigration board had twice denied asylum to Alima Traore, 28, but after women’s and human rights groups protested, U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey on Monday vacated that decision, saying the board was wrong, The New York Times reports. The ruling sends the case back to the Board of Immigration Appeals for reconsideration.

The immigration board previously said that, while it was "reprehensible," Traore’s genitals had been cut as a child, the mutilation could not be repeated. "The loss of a limb also gives rise to enduring harm,” the board said then, but that would not be a good enough reason to grant asylum.

But Mukasey disagreed.

“As several courts have recognized, female genital mutilation is indeed capable of repetition,” Mukasey’s order said.

You can read Mukasey’s order here.

He cited a case where one asylum applicant’s vaginal opening was sewn shut five times after being opened to allow for sexual intercourse and childbirth.

"The board was wrong to focus on whether the future harm to life or freedom that [the applicant] feared would take the ‘identical’ form," he added.

Traore, who has lived in the United States since 2000 after arriving on a tourist visa and has been studying nursing, fears being sent back to Mali, where her father has said he will force her to marry a first cousin. She said that if she has a female child, she’s afraid the child will face similar genital cutting. Most Malian women undergo the procedure.

The Los Angeles Times reports that Mukasey’s order does not guarantee the woman permanent residency in the U.S., but legal observers said they doubted the immigration board would oppose the move.

"I think the response now is one of overwhelming relief and jubilation … and a feeling of hope that this will set a precedent for future cases," Jen Smyers, a policy analyst with the immigration and refugee program at Church World Service told the LA Times.