Twenty-nine year old Ms. Abankwah requested asylum more than two years ago, when arriving at Kennedy International Airport. Instead of asylum, she quickly found herself under arrest for trying to enter the country with false immigration papers. Finally, on July 19 [1999], the Board of Immigration Appeals granted her her appeal on the petition for political asylum, on the ground that she feared being subjected to genital cutting if she returned to Ghana, her homeland. She is only the second woman granted asylum in the United States because of genital cutting, which millions of African women undergo each year.

"She's greatly relieved that the legal battle is all over," said Mandy Sullivan the campaign director for Equality Now. "And, it's very hard for her to comprehend that no one is going to come and snatch her back."

Since her release, Ms. Sullivan said, she has been visiting doctors and volunteering at Equality Now.

Her detention, and the denial of her asylum petition, sparked widespread protests this spring among immigrant rights groups and legislators from New York, who openly expressed their belief that the immigration service's position on Ms. Abankwah's case demonstrated that the Board of Immigation Appeals and the Immigation Naturalization Service were not committed to providing sylum for those fleeing sex-based persecution.

Female genital cutting was outlawed in the United States in 1996. That year the I.N.S. also recognized the practice as a valid form of persecution for immigrants seeking asylum. The decision in that case, based on the petition of another African native, Fauziya Kassindja, who is from Togo, became part of a series of guidelines on sex-based persecution that were issued to immigration judges. But immigration judges are not required to rule that persecution based on an applicant's sex constitutes a valid claim for asylum. Advocates say they rarely do so without public pressure.

"I think it will definitely give the Board of Immigration Appeals something to think abou when they're making decisions in such cases," said Mary Diaz, the director of the Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children.

"Hopefully, it will push them again to look at the guidelines on gender-based persecution."

The immigration service did not return a phone call requesting comment yesterday, and the board did not explain its reversal other than to refer to the Federal court's decision and a review of the record.

But for Ms. Abankwah, the most important words were there, telling her that her asylum application was being granted and that "exclusion proceedings are terminated."