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MPs demand FGM emergency plan

MPs demanded an emergency action plan to tackle the “national scandal” of female genital mutilation (FGM) yesterday.

The cross-party home affairs committee urged prosecutions through the courts to show perpetrators that the issue is at last being taken seriously.

While the practice of FGM has been outlawed in Britain since 1985, the first prosecution only took place this year.

An estimated 170,000 women and girls in Britain have undergone FGM, said the committee.

In two London boroughs, almost one in 10 girls are born to mothers who had suffered the procedure, and these girls were in turn at risk of becoming victims.

The MPs urged Britain to follow the example of France, where a large number of prosecutions and convictions had helped to combat the practice.

Victims of FGM should have the right to anonymity in order to aid prosecutions, they said.

Committee chairman Keith Vaz MP said: “FGM is an ongoing national scandal, which is likely to have resulted in the preventable mutilation of thousands of girls to whom the state owed a duty of care.

“Successive governments, politicians, the police, health, education and social care sectors should all share responsibility for the failure in recent years to respond adequately to the growing prevalence of FGM in the UK. 

“We need to act immediately.”

The MPs’ report highlighted the need for more support for victims, along with refuge shelters for those at risk.

It accused the Association of Chief Police Officers of showing “a distinct lack of leadership.”

FGM is most commonly carried out on girls between the ages of five and eight.

The immediate effects can include severe pain, bleeding, shock, infection and occasionally death. In the long-term, many victims experience mental health problems.

“FGM is a severe form of gender-based violence and, where it is carried out on a girl, it is an extreme form of child abuse,” said the report.

An action plan must include statutory guidelines for use by all professionals involved, and proper training.

Failure to report child abuse should be made a criminal offence if measures to increase the level of reporting are not effective in the next 12 months.

And FGM protection orders must be introduced similar to those which already exist for forced marriage.

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