Children Act 1989 (Amendment) (Female Genital Mutilation) Bill [HL]
Monday 3rd July 2017
(7 years, 4 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Children Act 1989 (Amendment) (Female Genital Mutilation) 2017-19 Read Hansard Text
Children Act 1989 (Amendment) (Female Genital Mutilation) Bill [HL]
Friday 20th July 2018
(6 years, 4 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Children Act 1989 (Amendment) (Female Genital Mutilation) 2017-19 Read Hansard Text
Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)
My Lords, this Bill seeks to make a one-line amendment to the Children Act 1989, but it would considerably extend protection to young girls at greatest risk of genital mutilation, and I can think only that its current omission is simply an oversight. I will begin and end with one startling fact. If a child is at risk of forced marriage or violence from, say, a habitually drunk father, the family court has all the full protective powers a court can offer, up to and including making an interim care order. But if a child is at serious risk of having her genitals mutilated, it does not. The powers fall far short, and all that can be done is to make an FGM protection order and hope for the best. How can that be right or logical? I will try to explain the difference between the two and will give some background to the genesis of the Bill.
When I joined your Lordships’ House in 2013, I came with music and music education as my main calling cards. But then I attended a debate on FGM, initiated by the late and much missed Ruth Rendell, Baroness Rendell of Babergh, and I was stunned and appalled by what I heard. I simply could not believe that in our country, girls were being subjected to a barbaric procedure that often leads to infertility, sepsis, pain and severe curtailment of sexual pleasure, performed all too often with dirty razor blades and in far from sterile conditions.
This custom has no basis in religion—in the Koran, for example—and as countless distinguished medical experts have told your Lordships’ House in previous debates, it cannot be justified for medical reasons: in fact, quite the reverse. So when Baroness Rendell died in 2015, and on hearing that many thousands of girls were considered at risk in this country—the figure of 60,000 was mentioned in one debate—I decided to take up the gauntlet and have asked Questions and tabled debates ever since, and will continue to do so.
Despite it being illegal since 1985—thanks again to Lady Rendell—there has not been a single successful prosecution of FGM in this country. That is regrettable, because it would certainly send a signal. However, I do not unduly castigate the Government for that—it is an extremely sensitive, delicate, cross-cultural problem—and I have come to agree with them that education is the most important resource in our armoury. We simply have to change the attitude to FGM that has been passed down the generations, largely by grandmother to mother to granddaughter, but in the alleged interests of men, who it is thought will welcome only girls who have not been sexually active. Therefore, FGM is designed to create a physical barrier to normal sexual activity but also a psychological one, in that it is supposed to lessen desire and lustful thoughts. Just imagine the long-term consequences of this and all the physical things I have mentioned for a woman.
Therefore, I welcome the decision that made mandatory the reporting of FGM in the National Health Service. The figures are not reassuring, and at this stage I thank the Library for providing the latest figures, as requested. In 2015-16, there were 9,223 reports, of which 6,080 were newly recorded. Between April 2016 and March 2017, 9,179 reports were recorded, of which 5,391 were newly recorded cases. Between January and March of this year, 2,320 attendances were already reported, of which 1,030 were newly recorded cases affecting women or girls. These shocking figure reveal just why we and the courts desperately need to have every form of protection available.
Having secured attention for this problem in your Lordships’ House, I was contacted by a barrister, Mr David Maddison, who from great experience—18 years of working in family law and with the police in Manchester—wrote to me explaining that a simple change in the law would enormously help the protection of the young girls most at risk of FGM. Based on his notes to me—this is our case—the power to make female genital mutilation protection orders is in Schedule 2 to the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003. This is in effect a stand-alone statutory code.
Lots of other remedies in the family courts also exist as stand-alone codes—for example, non-molestation orders are made under the Family Law Act 1996. Courts also have the power under the Children Act 1989 to make interim care orders when they are so concerned about a child’s welfare that the court wants a local authority to intervene and share parental responsibility. This is a very useful way for judges to alert local authorities to children who might have slipped beneath their radar. Crucially, however, the Children Act is not a stand-alone code in the sense that it allows a court to make interim care orders in any family proceedings.
Section 8(4) defines what is meant by family proceedings by listing various statutes. The effect of this section is that it allows a judge to reach across from one seemingly stand-alone code and use the powers of the Children Act 1989 to protect children by granting an interim care order. FGM is not listed as a family proceeding. However, the Family Law Act 1996, for example, is listed, so if a person were to apply for a non-molestation order under that Act, it would be open to a judge also to make an interim care order if the relevant test was satisfied. Section 8(4) is what allows the Children Act to open its protective umbrella, if you like, and offer shelter to many other children who might seek help under the Family Law Act or any of the other statutes listed in it. So one might well ask: could a non-molestation order cover FGM? In theory, yes, but it would involve hammering an oval peg through a round hole. It is not as workable and effective as including FGM as a family proceeding would be.
FGM protection orders and forced marriage protection orders were developed because it was realised that the courts were being forced to strain the limits of their available powers to provide appropriate protection. As a consequence, it was recognised that the courts needed better, bespoke tools for these problems. One particular difference between a non-molestation order and an FGM protection order is that a non-molestation order is applied for by the person seeking protection, and they can obtain protection only against “associated persons”. That has a lengthy definition but for these purposes is best understood as a very broad but not limitless pool of people whom that person may need protection from.
In contrast, FGM protection orders and forced marriage protection orders can be brought by the child or a relevant third party. That can include local authorities and police forces. This is important, because children might not voice their concerns or they might want it to look as though the decision has been taken out of their hands so that there are no reprisals from their family. Neither a local authority nor a police force can apply for a non-molestation order on behalf of someone. So, yes, you could use a non-molestation order to protect a child but it would generally involve the parent applying for it for their own and the child’s benefit. Where this tool is wanting, then, is in the ability of local authorities and police forces to act on their information and take protection steps. As I said, the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 is not included in the list of statutes at Section 8(4), so does not constitute family proceedings, and thus it is not open to a judge to make an interim care order if they think it appropriate. This is surely denying judges a very useful and important tool to protect children—hence the amendment that we seek to make to the Children Act.
The test for an interim care order is that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the child has suffered or is at risk of suffering significant harm. If a child is considered to be at risk of genital mutilation, it is not very likely that there will be reasonable grounds to believe that they are at risk of suffering significant harm? Can anyone argue with that? Therefore, we suspect that the Female Genital Mutilation Act is not listed in Section 8(4) more by oversight than by deliberate omission. It is very difficult to see an argument against including it. It will not lead to a flood of care orders. It is rare for judges to make interim care orders using their powers under Section 8(4)—Mr Maddison says that he has probably seen them less than a dozen times in his 18-year career—but judges should, and must, still have this tool at their disposal. As FGM becomes more and more visible and people become more and more active in doing something about it, so the change we seek will be more and more necessary.
I am most grateful to all noble Lords who are speaking today, particularly my noble and learned friend Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood and the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, on the Labour Benches, who will speak with great legal knowledge. I am also very grateful to the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Vere, who arranged for me to meet her and her officials earlier this week. Even though this is a one-line amendment, it inevitably involves complicated legal issues, which others in your Lordships’ House are much better qualified than me to deal with.
One of the great privileges of being a Member of this House is that just sometimes one can hope to make a real difference to people’s lives and, to that end, can also consult truly eminent experts in the field. I have done so, and by them and, as it happens, by leading politicians at the highest level, I have been much encouraged to pursue this Bill.
I end as I began by referring the House quite simply to one fact: the absolute illogicality of the family court being able to effectively protect a child at risk of forced marriage or domestic abuse but not protect one at risk of having her genitals mutilated. I beg to move.
Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood (CB)
My Lords, I begin by congratulating my noble friend Lord Berkeley of Knighton on promoting this Bill and on opening the debate so cogently. He has championed this most compelling of causes for some years past.
I put my name down to speak in the debate because I thought it might be helpful to add the voice of an erstwhile judge to what might appear to be a somewhat technical, legal objective, which this commendably focused Bill seeks. It will achieve, as has been admirably explained by my noble friend, the addition to the armoury of a judge who is seized of an application to make an FGM protection order under the 2003 Act the power to make an interim care order under the Children Act 1989, and thereby involve the local authority in the child’s future protection. To achieve this desirable aim, it is necessary by this Bill to effect the listing of the FGM Act 2003 itself among the various other statutes which constitute “family proceedings” for the purposes of Section 8(4) of the 1989 Act. Currently, inexplicably, the 2003 Act is omitted from that list. Really, that is all that needs to be said in support of this Bill.
I just wish to add this. The need to combat the scourge of FGM is one that I too have been alive to for some years. Twelve years ago, sitting in your Lordships’ House as a member of the Appellate Committee of this House, under the chairmanship of the late and much missed Lord Bingham of Cornhill, I was party to a decision in two linked asylum cases, reported under the title of Fornah v the Home Secretary, 2007, 1 AC 412. The cases concerned the meaning of the term “a particular social group” within the refugee convention. Put shortly, we held that FGM amounted to persecution under the convention and was an extreme expression of discriminatory treatment based on the institutional inferiority of all women in Sierra Leone, so that all women at risk of it were entitled to political asylum.
In giving the leading judgment in that case the noble Baroness, Lady Hale, now the President of the Supreme Court, which of course succeeded the Appellate Committee of this House, set out the WHO four-category definition of FGM—in fact, she did so in rather more detail than appears in the Library note, helpful though it is. I think it is worth reading into the debate her words at paragraph 92 of the judgment, in which she said that,
“these procedures are irreversible and their effects last a life time. They are usually performed by traditional practitioners using crude instruments and without anaesthetic. Immediate complications include severe pain, shock, haemorrhage, tetanus or sepsis, urine retention, ulceration of the genital region and injury to adjacent tissue. Long term consequences include cysts and abscesses, keloid scar formation, damage to the urethra resulting in urinary incontinence, dyspareunia (painful sexual intercourse) and sexual dysfunction. Infibulation can bring particularly severe consequences, and it may be necessary to cut open the skin to enable intercourse or childbirth to take place. It is likely that the risks of maternal death and stillbirth are greatly increased”.
Finally, I take this opportunity to make plain my growing astonishment and profound disappointment at the fact alluded to by my noble friend Lord Berkeley. Despite the continuing prevalence here of this disgusting and plainly criminal practice, there has still not been a single successful prosecution in the UK. Regularly prosecuting those guilty of it is, I am sure, central to the eventual eradication of this vile practice. In the meantime, in its own way, my noble friend’s Bill will, on occasion at least, save some poor child from this ghastly fate. I strongly support the Bill.
Baroness Flather (CB)
My Lords, I have very little to add to what has already been said today. I have come mainly to listen, because I was not aware that care orders could not be made at the same time or that nobody else could bring anything forward. If we can bring this amendment together with everything else, it cannot be anything but the right way. I have no problem with that at all.
I have known about FGM for a very long time. Since we first became aware of it, all of us have been horrified by its effect on women. How is it possible that it is still going on and is so prevalent in some countries? We know that it is only Muslims who practise this, and it has spread across Islamic countries and all over Africa. It happens also in Bangladesh. It is a really bad thing but it is very difficult to stop, because nobody will come forward to say, “This happened to me—please do something about it”. Unless somebody can come forward to say that they have been a victim, it is extremely difficult to bring a case. I hope that, sooner or later, we will get to that point and cases will be brought.
I want to add one point that is not usually mentioned. If a girl has been cut—as they say nowadays—she can claim a higher bride price and her family will get more money. As noble Lords will know, in the Muslim system the man’s family pays for the girl. I feel that that is quite an important factor: if you are very poor, it may make a difference as to whether you get so much money or you get double that. Noble Lords should bear that in mind when they think about FGM.
There is nothing more to be said other than that it is a horrible and horrifying practice.
Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)
My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley of Knighton, on introducing this Bill. It will make not a huge difference, but it will make some difference. As has been said by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, it adds to the armoury of those who hear these cases, and that can only be to the good. In reality, in many of the cases in which FGM protection orders are sought, local authorities are involved. Disclosure usually takes place by a girl telling a friend, who tells a teacher, who in turn contacts the local authority. Usually in that way, matters come to the attention of the courts and therefore orders are sought, but not always. Therefore, if the police become involved, that is a clear mechanism for engaging the social workers in the local authority in this business because often it is not just one child in the family but several. Therefore, keeping an eye on the family could be a very useful part of the armoury, as has been said.
I have been involved in this issue for many years going back to when the law was changed back in the 1980s. Baroness Rendell was not in the House in the 1980s and neither was I, but it came about as a result of intelligence coming forward that there were practitioners in Harley Street and even in poorer communities who were prepared to be involved in this. The law was directed towards medical practitioners. We can fairly say that that does not happen now. Doctors know the consequences and are not involved, and neither are midwives or women involved in medical practice in any form. What is happening now is that these practices are carried out by elders in the community, usually older women, and we have to recognise that the women in the communities, acculturated to this, are often great supporters of the practice and encourage it in each new generation. So it is important to see the depth of the cultural shift that needs to take place to deal with this terrible issue.
While the Bill would add to the range of possibilities, we need to ask why the criminal law has been so unsuccessful. In recent years, there have been two prosecutions. One was of a young doctor and it became very obvious early on—my legal advice was sought at one stage by colleagues who knew the young doctor—that he was in no way involved in communities where FGM was practised and knew very little about it. He was clearly out of his depth at a moment where a birth had taken place and he had stitched a woman after there had been an episiotomy to allow for a natural birth. She was expecting to be restitched in the way that she had been. She was not returned to how she had been, however; there was an overstitching and then there was a question of whether an offence had been committed. The young doctor went through the traumatic experience of having a prosecution brought. We need to be careful that prosecutions should be brought only in the right circumstances.
More recently, a case in Bristol involved a man who was a taxi driver. Someone sitting in his taxi who had been active on this issue encouraged a disclosure—or so it seemed. The taxi driver was encouraged to talk about FGM and drawn into it by someone who, in a way, came close to being an agent provocateur. He was provoked into discussing FGM and spoke about his own daughters. It led to a prosecution but it was shown that his daughters had not been subjected to FGM. Again, that was an unsuccessful prosecution. We have to be very careful about the use of criminal prosecutions. Young people and family members do not come forward where there is coercion and pressure because of the consequence. The idea that a father or mother might be imprisoned or that an elderly grandmother or someone admired in the community and does this work will end up in prison because of a complaint rests heavily on the shoulders of people in the community.
On Tuesday night this week, I was present at a charity that I am a patron of, Safe Hands. A wonderful woman was there known to everyone as Hibo, her first name. She speaks very publicly about how she herself was subjected to FGM as a child—the pain and trauma of it—and how it has affected her life ever since. She is now a woman in middle age with grown-up children. Her daughter, a young woman in her 20s, was present at the meeting. What was clear from Hibo’s description was the way in which this practice is maintained. The silence around it is maintained through shame. Shame is something that we attach to many things concerning women. We have to break down the shame. The good thing that is happening is that the openness of discussion has led to more young Somalian and Ethiopian women who live in this country speaking out about their experiences and saying that they will not undergo the practice. They then become the advocates for change. It is far better in the end that the community itself reckons with and becomes well informed about the consequences of this practice.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, spoke about the judgment of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale, in the Fornah case—a case that I have written about extensively and was very involved in at the time, when there was campaigning around the issue of whether this was a form of persecution. The Court of Appeal failed badly, but it is interesting. It is an argument for having women in our senior courts because a woman judge on the Court of Appeal dissented and said that it was persecution. A strong argument was made, which was shared by the men in the Supreme Court, that it was persecution. Even if women support the practice, it is because they have been acculturated into thinking that it is acceptable.
As the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, said, it is not just about keeping women chaste and protecting virginity, but about taking away a woman’s sexuality and the possible enjoyment of sex. It is to do with the idea that you will stop a woman being promiscuous. I have travelled to Ethiopia on human rights projects when we discuss with senior people the ways change can be made, and we hear it said that the practice makes the girl gentler—a better wife and more passive. Those descriptions are made.
I want to make this clear and it is important that the noble Baroness, Lady Flather, hears me say this: this is not confined to the Muslim community. It is a cultural practice that has nothing to do with religion although many people in a religion are told that it has. In Ethiopia, I met young Christian girls who were experiencing FGM, too. It is not confined to any one religious group, but is a cultural practice about notions of how womanhood ought to be. It is important to have a public discussion about that and to challenge it.
The charity Safe Hands does wonderful work in Ethiopia, Somalia and other countries in Africa. Some 20 years ago, Ruth Rendell came into this House. She had written a crime novel about FGM. She told me about it and I told her that I knew a bit about the subject. I took her to the Africa clinic at the North Middlesex University Hospital where women go who are giving birth and where they have to have an episiotomy—to be cut open—to deliver their babies. The doctors explained that they would not be returned to the way that they were. But the doctors all told us that when those young women returned to have their second babies, their vaginas had been stitched up again. So the practice was happening in the communities. They were not having to return to Somalia or the places from whence they came. It was happening at the hands of older women. The men have also been told that it is the right thing to do. So it is wonderful to have men taking part in this debate and for it to be led by a man. It is important that this is not a women’s issue but an issue for all of us. It is an issue of health, humanity and law.
Criminal law is not the only way forward. Although we want to see prosecutions, we must not urge the Crown Prosecution Service to bring prosecutions and for them to be unsuccessful because they are not the right prosecutions. We want to have confidence that the communities will talk about this, and then people will point to who is at the heart of performing these operations. I greatly commend what the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, seeks to do and I know that it will make a difference. I thank him for doing this.
Baroness Boycott (CB)
I congratulate my noble friend Lord Berkeley of Knighton on bringing to the House this extremely important Bill. I am delighted to be able to add my voice in support. As has been said, FGM is a truly horrific crime which is carried out in our country every day of the week and I, like others, am horrified that so many young girls are still being affected. The lack of successful prosecutions shows the complexity of this issue, and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, for illuminating just how problematic it is.
I was horrified to learn that this week, which is the start of the school summer holidays, is known as the “cutting season” because it is when the practice is traditionally carried out, certainly in the UK. I also learned that, as it is now expensive for people to travel to their country of origin with their daughters, they pool their resources to bring a cutter over from abroad so that girls can be mutilated in groups. Poorer families form a sort of co-operative to raise the funds that will pay for someone to come from overseas. If you are wealthy enough, you can use a doctor or a nurse at a private clinic. London, the city we live in, has been accused of being the FGM capital of Europe because so many people come here, using the Eurostar to bring their daughters over here to be mutilated.
Both here in the UK and elsewhere, Plan International—a charity that I have worked for that seeks the betterment of women and girls across the world—points out that there are certain warning signs we can look for: hearing girls talk about a planned summer trip to a country known to practise FGM; girls talking about visiting relatives for a ceremony or for an event; and holidays that include additional time either at the beginning or the end. I recently read about a scheme that one school has initiated to try to identify young girls in fear of being taken abroad for forced marriage. They suggested that any young woman who was scared in this way should come to school with a spoon hidden in her underwear. This would set off the metal detectors in the school, and in this way she could alert teachers to her plight without actually having to say anything. Is there any possibility of an idea like this being copied?
Finally, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a great writer and campaigner who is now an ex-Muslim, was herself the victim of FGM at the age of five. She says that even today, many years on, she would never be able to prosecute her family for what they did, even though she knows intellectually that FGM is a crime. I shall quote her words:
“It is a psychological issue. The people who are doing this are fathers, mothers, grandmothers, aunts. No little girl is going to send them to prison. How do you live with that guilt?”.
I congratulate her, Nimco Ali and other fine and brave young women, who had this vile practice carried out on them in their younger years, on having the guts and the courage to come forward and talk about it. As others have said, ultimately it is only through education that we will change this practice.
However, in the meantime it is clear that the courts must have the right to defend a child who they think is in this kind of danger. These are vulnerable little girls who are being persecuted and mutilated by the very people they have placed all their trust in—in other words, their families. They are totally vulnerable. I hugely congratulate my noble friend on introducing this important Bill, and I thoroughly support it.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, it is a privilege to support my noble friend Lord Berkeley of Knighton, whose Private Member’s Bill provides another step in seeking to prevent the barbaric practice of female genital mutilation and ultimately to protect girls from being subjected to it. I concur with the remarks of the preceding speakers. It is also a pleasure to follow my newly ennobled noble friend Lady Boycott, who has just addressed the House. In preparing for today’s debate, I am indebted to the work of Ewelina Ochab, and to the noble Baroness, Lady Vere of Norbiton, who is to respond to the debate. I thank her and her officials for the time that she gave myself and my noble friend earlier this week to discuss the Bill before it was to be debated in your Lordships’ House.
I shall begin by referring to the World Health Organization, which has said:
“Female genital mutilation (FGM) is recognized internationally as a violation of the human rights of girls and women”.
The organisation describes four different kinds of FGM, all inflicted on young women who experience pain and suffering as a consequence. WHO research indicates that FGM can lead to several immediate complications and long-term consequences. It reports that the immediate complications include:
“severe pain … excessive bleeding … swelling … fever … infections … urinary problems … wound healing problems … shock”,
and even,
“death”.
FGM also has an effect on childbirth. Women literally have to be cut open to allow the birth of the infant and then sewn up again. This adds unnecessary complications to an already risky situation.
However, FGM stands for more than the inflicting of pain and suffering. The WHO says:
“It reflects deep-rooted inequality between the sexes, and constitutes an extreme form of discrimination against women and girls”.
FGM violates a litany of human rights, including the right to security and physical integrity, the right to be free from torture and cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment, and potentially also the right to life.
As my noble friend has stressed, and as was emphasised by the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, FGM is not specified in the Koran and it is happening in non-Muslim communities too. However, religious leaders should be vociferous in speaking out against it and developing the kind of educational approach that my noble friend and others have said is enormously important in combating this cruelty.
Universal human rights are more important than treading carefully around the sensibilities of any community, especially in a country like our own that condemns FGM and even more so in countries that do not condemn it. It is striking, and perhaps even encouraging and hopeful, that in countries like Sudan the educated and more wealthy citizens do not subject their daughters to FGM. They need to become more active in seeking to outlaw this practice altogether. In this context, I recall the success of that remarkable Englishwoman, Gladys Aylward, who became one of the Chinese foot inspectors enforcing laws that finally ended the cruel practice of the foot-binding of young Chinese girls. The law was changed, but so were hearts, minds and attitudes.
It is greatly to be welcomed that the United Nations has vigorously condemned FGM as a violation of human rights. In Resolution A/RES/67/146 of 20 December 2012, the General Assembly urged all members to,
“prohibit female genital mutilations and to protect women and girls from this form of violence, and to end impunity”.
It went on—my noble friend and others should be heartened by this, because it is emphasises the importance of education—to urge,
“States to complement punitive measures with awareness-raising and educational activities designed to promote a process of consensus towards the elimination of female genital mutilations”.
The subsequent UN General Assembly Resolution A/69/150 of 18 December 2014 reaffirmed the call to ban FGM worldwide. Significantly, that resolution was co-sponsored by the group of African states along with 71 member states. In 2015, FGM was also identified as one of the millennium sustainable development goals.
Let us look at the scale of the challenge. According to the United Nations and despite international efforts to end the practice of FGM, it is estimated that at least 200 million girls and women alive today have undergone some form of FGM. That is a staggering figure. The countries with the highest prevalence of FGM among girls aged 14 and younger are Gambia with 56%, Mauritania with 54% and Indonesia where around half of girls aged 11 and younger have undergone the practice. The countries with the highest prevalence among girls and women aged 15 to 49 are Somalia with 98%, Guinea with 97% and Djibouti with 93%.
But as I have made clear, the issue of FGM is not only one for African countries or other parts of the world. The occurrence of FGM in the UK is significantly lower than in the countries I have cited, but as my noble friend Lady Boycott has just pointed out, it is also practised in the UK and there are women and girls in our midst who have been subjected to it. The National Health Service has reported:
“There were 5,39l newly recorded cases of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) reported in England during 2016-17, according to the second publication of annual statistics from this data set. The FGM statistics, published … by NHS Digital, also showed that there were 9,179 total attendances in the same period where FGM was identified or a medical procedure for FGM was undertaken”.
For six in 10 attendances, medical treatment post FGM was required. According to the NHS,
“Women and girls born in Somalia account for … 35 per cent or 875 cases … of newly recorded cases of FGM with a known country of birth (2,504). Of the newly recorded cases, 112 involved women and girls who were born in the United Kingdom. In 57 cases, the FGM was known to have been undertaken in the UK”.
Providing assistance for post-FGM consequences is obviously crucial, but we must do more and act to prevent the practice of FGM in the first place, which is why my noble friend introduced the Bill. Despite the clear legal provisions criminalising the use of the FGM, as set out in this House by my noble and learned friend Lord Brown of Eaton-under Heywood, prosecution does not necessarily follow. That was confirmed by Her Majesty’s Government in a response to a Written Question tabled by Laura Smith, MP for Crewe and Nantwich, who asked about the number of prosecutions for FGM in the last 30 years. The government Minister replied:
“There has been one prosecution which was under the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003”.
As my noble and learned friend pointed out, even that prosecution was unsuccessful, which is truly shocking.
My noble friend Lord Berkeley’s Bill is an opportunity to shine a light once again on the barbarism of FGM and the wholly inadequate policing of this crime, but it also introduces a new safeguard by equipping the courts with an extra power to protect children from the risks of FGM. This is about striking the right balance in the law. It is significant that the Council of Europe recently passed a resolution on,
“Striking a balance between the best interest of the child and the need to keep families together”.
The Bill seeks to achieve that idea of striking the right balance.
To conclude, notwithstanding the wider question of parental responsibility, we need to recognise that the case of FGM differs significantly from any other cases that the UK courts normally deal with—namely, we are discussing a procedure that inflicts pain and suffering on girls and women, is both unnecessary and harmful and may have lifelong consequences for the affected girls or women to deal with for the rest of their lives. For those reasons, I support my noble friend’s Bill and hope that it will achieve a Second Reading in your Lordships’ House today.
Baroness Featherstone (LD)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, on the Bill and taking up the cudgels of the late and great Lady Ruth Rendell, who raised the issue of FGM for many years. I think that this is the first time I have spoken on FGM in this House; I have been here only a couple of years.
It is an interesting history. I was at the Home Office when I first heard about FGM. A young girl, Nimco Ali, came to see me with a few girls from an organisation she had started called Daughters of Eve. She metaphorically took me by the collar and shook me. She said, “This is child abuse. This is violence against women. You have to do something”. It was a lesson: people think that meetings with Ministers do not affect them, but it affected me and has led me to work on FGM ever since.
At that time, in the age of austerity, the Home Office was facing severe cuts. As it happens, I was reshuffled to the Department for International Development, which had money—and has money, rightly so. I walked in and the first thing I said was, “I want to do something about female genital mutilation because our diaspora hangs on to the rules even longer than the countries of origin”. As is so often the case when you are a Minister—as I am sure the Ministers opposite will know—if you meet a like-minded civil servant, you are in with a very good chance. I met one such civil servant who will remain nameless. They said, “Here’s one I prepared earlier”, and brought forward plans for a £35 million programme to support work that was then going on in Africa. We could not be finger-wagging colonialists saying, “This is what you should do”. We were supporting an African-led movement. As said by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, the United Nations, 25 African countries and the African Union have banned FGM. So, this was about timing as well, which so often plays an important part.
The £35 million programme that we brought forward was the biggest in the world. I went to the UN Commission on the Status of Women and was allowed to announce the programme, but not the figure of £35 million. I am not entirely sure that I should say this, but I will: at that point, David Cameron wanted the amount to be in line with the Downing Street press release for International Women’s Day. I was sitting on a platform in front of an audience of 600 people, including the heads of countries involved in moving forward on FGM. It came to my turn, I gave my speech and I thought, “This is ridiculous. This is the moment”, so I said, “I am very happy to announce a £35 million worldwide programme, the biggest ever, to support the African-led movement”. I remember seeing my Private Secretary, who was busy on her BlackBerry, gasp, thinking, “What has my Minister done? I will be in trouble”. I was in trouble when I got back, but that is another story. It was a coalition; let us leave it at that.
That announcement kicked off everything that noble Lords will have heard about on this subject in the past five or so years, which carries on today. Legislative changes were brought in at that time. We managed to bring in travel ban orders, female genital protection orders and mandatory reporting. Immediately after that announcement, I did a Channel 4 programme in the UN basement. The next morning, I woke up to a text from the Evening Standard. I phoned in and did an interview, which kicked off the most amazing FGM campaign by a newspaper. It ran FGM stories every day and still does. It is going through a regeneration. That meant that I had a lot of power behind the argument. It also meant that many people, including David Cameron and Justine Greening, who was fantastic, wanted to join my mission. We had the Girl Summit, which sought a worldwide FGM ban. Things began to change, but as has been said, that one prosecution failed. As said by the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, the law is not the answer, although it is very important. I will come to the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, shortly.
The noble Lord, Lord Alton, raised the issue of equality. I have to say—I have said this from many a platform—that if we were cutting off half of men’s penises, that practice would not have lasted five seconds, let alone 5,000 years. Noble Lords may laugh, but it is so true. There would not be one failed prosecution; there would be successful prosecutions across the land and across the world. In fact, it would never have started.
I want to pay tribute to the work of Efua Dorkenoo, who was the most amazing woman and the mother of the fight to end FGM. Sadly, she died recently, but her dedication and bravery in bringing this practice to light made all that has followed possible. As said by the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, she was a brave African woman who talked about women’s sexuality and all its issues.
There is cutting in this country but many girls are taken back to their mother countries. Someone raised the issue of this being the “cutting season”; of course, it is. Any girl who goes missing in the period before school breaks up should be reported because it is a clue that leads to the possibility of a travel ban order. As I said, we made some great steps during the coalition but we did not go far enough. We introduced mandatory reporting but on the front line, social workers, teachers, healthcare professionals, the police and other public servants did not have the knowledge or confidence to address FGM. At the Girl Summit, we managed to introduce front-line training, but it was online; that is vital but inadequate. It needs to be part of the studies that lead to qualification. We cannot expect professionals to report unless they have the knowledge and confidence to do so.
Importantly, a measure that remains untouched is teaching about FGM in schools, as so many girls have no idea what is about to happen to them. We have to be able to warn them about sudden visits home, signpost who they can talk to if they are worried and explain what might happen. We have to bring this into schools. I am afraid I tried with Michael Gove and failed. I also tried with Justine, whom I hoped would bring it forward when she was Secretary of State for Education, but sadly she did not. We still need that to be brought forward in schools, particularly in areas of high prevalence, where there is extreme resistance by the community, parents and head teachers to spreading any knowledge about this. We need to be speaking to the male leaders of communities that practise FGM. Of course, much of the answer lies within the community itself, so we clearly need to support the brave girls and groups who campaign from and within the community and to make sure that they are given the help and funding they need to carry out their hugely important work.
That brings me to the point of today’s debate. This should absolutely be a tool in the court’s armoury—anything that enables authorities and professionals to step in and intervene to stop harm to a child is vital. The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, is a sensible and useful addition to the tools that can be used for this intractable, harmful and disgraceful practice.
Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)
My Lords, my noble friend Lady Gale is unwell, so I have the pleasure and the honour of making a guest appearance in your Lordships’ House. I am delighted to be speaking in this debate and in such distinguished company. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has set out extremely well the amendment, and the legal and other brains around the House have also explained the amendment in some detail. I shall not repeat those explanations.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, for introducing this Bill and this debate. It is another wake-up call to us to be vigilant about this abhorrent practice performed on women and girls, and which is of course illegal in this country. I am also delighted to hear that the noble Lord is committed to fighting on in this manner. This is a form of child abuse—and “child” means up to the age of 18. The noble Lord has cleverly intertwined two Acts: the Children Act 1989 and the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003. FGM has been a scourge in our and other societies for many years. There has never been a prosecution, although we have come near to it in this country. It is an act frequently performed on girls from some communities—not necessarily religious—against their consent, often arranged by parents or a relative, and it is potentially dangerous. It is very often performed by a person with no surgical experience, and is likely to have severe psychological consequences for women and cause severe physical difficulties in sexual intercourse and childbirth. Repair is possible but I am not aware of how common this is. I have spoken to doctors and midwives who are horrified by the damage done to women and girls. Most victims are young and have no say in the proceedings. Statistics probably underestimate the size of this problem.
The Private Member’s Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, is part of a process to tackle violence against children and it may be useful to give some indicators of that process today. The Children Act 1989 is central to the amendment. There have, of course, been many Children Acts in the UK, all responding to the current needs of children. They have evolved over the years. There is no single piece of legislation that covers child protection or safeguarding in the UK, but a number of laws provide a comprehensive framework. The child protection systems across the UK—in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland—are different, but all based on similar principles. The basis of all systems is that the welfare of the child is paramount, as expressed in the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child of 1989, which the UK has of course ratified. I am glad to say that the UK has also recently ratified another important convention: the Council of Europe Lanzarote Convention on Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse.
We are fortunate in the UK to have a vigorous and vigilant voluntary sector for children. I know that, because I work with it. We have campaigns supporting children against abuse, such as the Together We Can Tackle Child Abuse campaign. We have had seminal reports, such as the one produced by our colleague the noble Lord, Lord Laming, in 2009 following the horrific Victoria Climbié case. This report called for an overhaul of children’s social work, including a safeguarding delivery unit. As I said, things have evolved and we in the UK have been active on child welfare. There are criticisms, including a lack of integration of strategies for children and interaction between the various frameworks and definitions, lack of data and not enough consultation with children, including child victims. I support strongly the participation of children in developing strategies which involve them. As one young woman said to me at a recent seminar on mental health and youth justice, “We are experts by experience”. How true. I shall return to this later.
I am a member of the British delegation to the Council of Europe, and I chair the Sub-Committee on Children. I am impressed by the commitment of the Council of Europe in advocating for children. Its Istanbul Convention of 2011 speaks specifically about FGM, and the Council of Ministers has called for multiagency co-operation and integrated strategies to combat this practice—something we should perhaps look at more closely in our own efforts.
This amendment is an example of, and contribution to, joining the dots. FGM is a problematic issue, as has been explored today. It is well summed up in the response to a parliamentary Written Question in February 2017:
“There has been one prosecution brought under the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003, which was unsuccessful. The police and Crown Prosecution Service … have highlighted that one reason for the lack of investigations and prosecutions is a lack of referrals. In addition, cultural taboo and the age and vulnerability of the victims may prevent them coming forward”.
This is something we need to crack: any attempt to integrate aspects of our laws, as this amendment does, will help. As I said earlier, there is no single piece of legislation that covers child protection. The Children Act 2004, which supplemented the 1989 Act, identified the components of child protection, including: the principle of paramountcy, with the welfare of the child being most important—the welfare of the child must come first; the provision of services for children in need; the duty to investigate; co-operative arrangements for care and care orders; parental responsibility; the protocol for inquiries and case conferences; police powers; and emergency protection powers. All these aspects have other aspects in other Acts. As I said before, integration is something we should look at. We should work together; perhaps the Minister can say something about this and talk to others afterwards about how we might integrate better.
Yesterday, we had an important Statement on the need for personal, social and health education in schools. Many of us have fought for this for years, believing that a key element of education is encouraging young people to develop confidence, social and emotional skills and self-esteem. By having such skills, health and relationships can improve. Through such programmes in schools, maybe we can encourage girls who are likely to be or who have been victims of FGM to speak out—and not just them, but their friends and others in their communities. Of course, it is unthinkable for girls to denounce their parents, but they can surely talk, or learn to talk, to someone who is sympathetic to their case and their cause. There is no substitute for “experts by experience”.
When speaking of FGM, I am always reminded of the debt we owe to the late and much loved Ruth Rendell, who has been mentioned by others. She was of course a celebrated crime novelist. In a lesser light, she was also my mentor when I came here. She vigorously supported the fight against FGM by speaking at conferences, by giving interviews and indeed by funding a film to be used in the training of midwives and nurses.
She also, as my noble friend Lady Kennedy said, wrote a novel which introduced the subject of FGM. It was called Live Flesh and described a plot to subject a girl to FGM and how the girl narrowly escaped. In what I believe was her last speech in your Lordships’ House, in December 2014, a week after mandatory reporting of FGM was instituted as part of the Government’s reducing and preventing crime strategy, she said:
“those of us who have worked against FGM have long been convinced that the best way of stopping it would be to prosecute the perpetrators”.—[Official Report, 11/12/14; col. 523.]
In France, there have been more than 100 successful prosecutions; also in Italy, Sweden and parts of Africa. Parents have been prosecuted for employing a so-called circumciser to cut the girl. The parents were sent to prison for three years. In France, girls are regularly examined by their doctors to check whether they have had FGM or are in danger of having it.
As I said, there have been no prosecutions in the UK. The reason given is that a girl will not go to court and give evidence against her parents about abuse carried out on her. I repeat that the girl should be given the self-empowerment to talk to someone about it.
FGM is an appalling crime. I think we hear less now about cultural values overriding cruelty to children, but FGM still goes on. The welfare of the child is paramount. By combining an FGM Bill with a children’s Bill, the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has done a service to child protection. I support the amendment and hope that the Government will continue to strive mightily to fight the crime of FGM.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in today’s debate. The strength of support for the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, from all sides of the House is testament to the unanimous desire to stamp out this barbaric act. Female genital mutilation is an extremely painful and harmful practice that blights the lives of many girls and women. The Government roundly condemn this practice and are determined to see it eradicated in this country and elsewhere.
The practice of FGM is an age-old one, deeply steeped in the culture and tradition of practising communities. Those who practise it no doubt genuinely believe that it is in their children’s best interests to conform with the prevailing custom of their community. But that does not excuse such a gross violation of their human rights. It is wholly unacceptable to allow a practice that can have such devastating consequences for the health of a young girl. The physical and psychological effects can last throughout her life. The mutilation and impairment of young girls and women can have no place in modern society.
The Government are clear that tackling FGM is about protecting vulnerable girls and women. That is why, in 2015, the Government introduced several legislative measures to strengthen the law on FGM to help make prosecutions more likely and protect women and girls at risk. These measures included extending extraterritorial jurisdiction to cover offences of FGM committed abroad by habitual, as well as permanent, UK residents; lifelong anonymity for victims of FGM; the creation of a new offence of failing to protect a girl from the risk of FGM; a mandatory duty to report FGM in girls under the age of 18; and the introduction of female genital mutilation protection orders—FGMPOs.
However, bringing perpetrators to justice cannot happen unless victims or those at risk of FGM come forward. The highly personal and intimate nature of the offence may be one reason for a victim or a girl at risk being reluctant to report FGM. But added to this is the fact that the crime of FGM is usually committed in a family context, with most victims or those at risk too young, scared or unwilling to report members of their own family. This makes it a more complex and sensitive issue and one where gathering sufficient evidence to prosecute is challenging. That is why the police continue to work with a broad range of agencies to raise awareness of FGM and encourage more people to report it.
FGM occurs in specific communities, with religious reasons cited as one explanation of why FGM is practised. But, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, mentioned, it is not mentioned in the Koran. Since 2014, the Government have been working with faith leaders to address the practice of FGM, with a specific focus on breaking the perception that FGM is indeed a faith requirement. It is not. Over 250 faith and community leaders have signed a declaration denouncing the practice, and the Government are using their work with faith leaders in target communities to reach further into other communities.
Education of girls and women is essential, and education from within their communities is likely to be the most effective. The noble Baroness, Lady Flather, mentioned the prevalence of FGM in Africa, and FGM is indeed unlikely to end in the UK before it ends in Africa. The Department for International Development has led a £35 million flagship programme—the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, mentioned it as part of an interesting anecdote about working as a team in coalition government—that supports the Africa-led movement to end FGM, and is supporting work in 17 countries.
The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, gave an outstanding speech in which he set out the challenges and impacts of FGM and the steps that have been taken so far. I welcome his support for the action taken by the Government. We are keen to do more. I also welcome his focus and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, on advocacy. Both are right, and it must be a priority as we take things forward.
I was very pleased—and, indeed, a little relieved—that the Bill attracted the significant support of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood. He mentioned the lack of prosecutions, as did the noble Baronesses, Lady Kennedy and Lady Massey, and the noble Lord, Lord Alton. Regrettably, they are right, but, as also noted by the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, prosecutions must not be undertaken lightly. As I mentioned, FGM cases are challenging to prosecute for many reasons.
Lord West of Spithead (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness. I must say that I have a sense of déjà vu. I feel very strongly about FGM. Eleven years ago, sitting in her place, I worked very closely with Lady Rendell because we were not getting anywhere—we were not moving things forward. There was Project Azure with the Metropolitan Police, and one issue was no prosecutions. It is appalling that we were trying then to do it—I know the complexity—and yet for some reason we still cannot do it. We must break the logjam, as well as do all the other things which are so important. I feel a complete failure that in 11 years we have not done something about such an abhorrent and terrible thing.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
I thank the noble Lord for his intervention and of course agree, but with the caveat that we must ensure that the prosecutions are the right ones. The Crown Prosecution Service’s female genital mutilation prosecution guidance provides guidance for prosecutors in dealing with cases of FGM. The guidance was revised following the amendments made to the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 by the Serious Crime Act, as I outlined earlier. In addition, lead FGM prosecutors have now been appointed for each CPS area, and all those areas have agreed protocols with their local police forces setting out the arrangements for investigation and prosecution of FGM.
We would all like more prosecutions for FGM, there is no doubt about that. However, we must make sure that we do not prosecute the wrong people.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister and entirely agree with what she just said about not bringing flimsy cases that do not stand up in court. She will have heard what was said earlier on about the number of successful prosecutions in other European Union countries. Are we looking at best practice elsewhere so that the failure rate that the noble Lord, Lord West, identified, does not continue for another 11 or 12 years?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
Yes, the noble Lord is completely right. I was just about to come on to that, because I listened with great interest to the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, about prosecutions in other countries which one might say are very similar to ours. There must be things that we can learn from those countries. I will take that back to the department—I will write to noble Lords if there is any more information on it—to ask what we are doing about it and whether we are looking at the successful prosecutions in other countries.
It was my pleasure to listen to the well-informed speech from the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, just two days after her maiden speech, but I was distressed to learn that there is a cutting season and to hear about the steps that families now take to continue this practice by bringing third parties from overseas to inflict this on a number of girls. I thank her for her contribution. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, reminded us of the prevalence of FGM. The figure of 200 million is truly shocking. This practice is truly barbaric and far more widespread than many would believe.
I turn to the Bill, which seeks to amend a small and, we believe, unintentional gap in the law. As the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, said, there has been an oversight. He explained that the purpose of the Bill is to amend Section 8(4) of the Children Act 1989 to bring proceedings for FGMPOs within the definition of “family proceedings” for the purpose of the 1989 Act. The effect of bringing FGMPO proceedings within this definition would be that a number of powers under the Children Act 1989 would be opened up to the family courts in those proceedings, such as the power to make a care or supervision order.
The Government are pleased to be able to support the Bill at Second Reading. There are a few minor and technical amendments that we believe are appropriate and we will of course discuss them with the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, and other interested noble Lords before the Bill returns to your Lordships’ House for its next stage. First, however, I will provide a little bit of background on the introduction of FGMPOs and the ways in which such orders may currently be made, and explain the framework that applies to child protection in England and Wales.
FGMPOs were introduced in 2015 alongside a series of other legislative measures intended to strengthen the criminal law in this area and to make successful prosecutions more likely. An FGMPO is, however, a civil law measure, designed to protect those at risk of FGM from ever being subjected to this cruel practice. Applications for FGMPOs can be made to the family court or High Court. The family court and High Court can also make an FGMPO of their own volition, as can a criminal court during proceedings for an FGM offence. Between July 2015, when FGMPOs were introduced, and March 2018 the courts have made 220 FGMPOs.
FGMPOs were closely modelled on forced marriage protection orders, introduced in 2007 by means of adding a new Part 4A to the Family Law Act 1996. All proceedings under the Family Law Act 1996 are defined in Section 8 of the Children Act 1989 as “family proceedings” for the purpose of the 1989 Act. When FGMPOs were introduced the then Government decided to include the relevant provisions in the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003, rather than in the Family Law Act, so that all the relevant law on FGM would be in one place, but one apparently unintended consequence of that approach was that FGMPO proceedings were not included within the definition of “family proceedings” for the purpose of the Children Act 1989. A number of orders can be made to protect children in “family proceedings” under the 1989 Act, and the exclusion of FGMPO proceedings from that definition means that, as the law stands, if a local authority applicant for an FGMPO wishes also to apply for, for example, a care or a supervision order, a separate application is required.
Bringing FGMPO proceedings within the definition of “family proceedings” would mean that an application by a local authority or the NSPCC for a care or supervision order relating to a child at risk of significant harm could be made during FGMPO proceedings, thus avoiding the need for a separate application and potential delay. Other powers of the family court, including powers to make, for example, a prohibited steps order, special guardianship order or family assistance order, would also be available to the FGMPO proceedings. The Government believe that this simplification of process that the Bill intends is sensible and we are pleased to support it. It adds to the measures that the Government have brought forward to tackle FGM issues.
I turn to child protection in England and Wales and the role of the courts and local authorities. One of the key principles of the legislation that underpins the child protection system in England and Wales is that children are best looked after within their families. However, where a local authority has reasonable cause to suspect that a child is suffering or is likely to suffer significant harm, it has a duty to make such inquiries as it considers necessary to decide whether to take any action to safeguard or to promote a child’s welfare. Ultimately, however, it is for the courts to make that decision. They may make an order to remove a child from his or her family’s care only if they are satisfied that the child is suffering or likely to suffer significant harm attributable to the care being given to the child or the child being beyond parental control. The welfare of the child must be the paramount consideration in any decision that the courts make.
On child protection more generally, the Government have ensured that there is an ongoing responsibility for schools to safeguard the children in their care. Recently refreshed statutory guidance, Keeping Children Safe in Education, includes specific information on what FGM is, what to look out for and where to go for help.
To conclude, the Bill seeks to make a small, technical amendment to close a gap in the law that will have the principal benefit in FGMPO proceedings of making available to the court a number of powers under the Children Act 1989 that would serve to increase the ability of the court to protect children at risk. Once again, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, the eagle-eyed lawyer, Mr Maddison, who was so determined to remedy this oversight, and all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. The Government are pleased to support the Bill and I commend it to the House.
Lord Berkeley of Knighton
My Lords, I am grateful and humbled to receive such unanimous support around the House from such distinguished speakers, many with greater knowledge of these matters than I have. My noble and learned friend Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood reminded us what this involves, through the words of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale. The noble Baroness, Lady Flather, spoke about work in Africa. I could link that to what my noble friend Lord Alton said about work in sub-Saharan Africa, where it is worth reflecting that NGOs are making some progress with these communities. It was a great pleasure to have the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, speak. She is absolutely right to reinforce what the Minister said about this not being a religious matter. This is not in the Koran; it extends beyond simply one religion. It is not religious and it is wrong to be made to think that it is purely a Muslim matter.
It was lovely to have our new colleague on these Benches, my noble friend Lady Boycott, speak. From what she said then and in her maiden speech, there is no question but that she will be an extremely valuable addition to your Lordships’ House. I was grateful to her for mentioning the bravery of people such as Nimco Ali, who came to one of the debates I started, because that is the way in which we will educate people. The Minister mentioned education. “Education, education, education”—we have heard that before—but in this instance we have to get the word out. Prosecutions are important, but education is even more so.
I was grateful to hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, who has such experience and passion to right these wrongs. Two distinguished surgeons and Members of your Lordships’ House, the noble Lords, Lord McColl and Lord Winston, have described to me the terrible things they face in the operating theatre when trying to repair this damage. The noble Baroness said that if our penises were shortened, we might mind more, but there is an important point here. As the noble Lord, Lord Winston, said, many people ask whether this is not the same as male circumcision. It is absolutely not. Whatever you may think about male circumcision —we probably all think different things—it is not done to decrease sexual pleasure. Some would argue that male circumcision results in that; I could not possibly say.
I was very pleased to hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Massey of Darwen, that the Labour Party will support us, because that in some ways is a tribute to the incredible work of Lady Rendell, whom we all miss so much. Most of all, I am grateful to the Minister, who has been incredibly helpful. I look forward to working with her further on this matter.
It has been an extraordinary debate about something that we all care passionately about. I regard the human body as a kind of sacred vessel. What we do to our own body is one thing, but we should not allow other people to interfere with it in any circumstances. Having thanked everyone who has spoken, I ask the House to give the Bill a Second Reading.
Children Act 1989 (Amendment) (Female Genital Mutilation) Bill [HL]
Friday 26th October 2018
(6 years ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Children Act 1989 (Amendment) (Female Genital Mutilation) 2017-19 Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: HL Bill 28-I Marshalled list for Committee (PDF) - (24 Oct 2018)
Lord Berkeley of Knighton
Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)
My Lords, this Bill seeks to make a small yet important—vital, even—amendment to the Children Act 1989. I take this opportunity to thank officials from the Ministry of Justice and the wider Government and, in particular, the noble Baroness, Lady Vere—the Minister—for their considerable support in helping to ensure that this Bill is clear in its extent and scope. I also pay tribute to the barrister David Maddison in Manchester, who has given unstintingly of his time in helping me with this Bill, and to my noble and learned friend Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood for generously casting his eye over matters and proceedings—an eye far more expert in these matters than mine.
As I explained at Second Reading, the family court can issue a care order for a child at risk of forced marriage or at risk from a habitually drunken, violent father, but it cannot issue a care order for a girl at risk of having her genitals mutilated. My Bill aims to redress precisely this situation. The amendments before your Lordships’ House today are technical in nature and ensure that necessary reference is made to the relevant sections of the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 in order that this Bill extends only to female genital mutilation—FGM—protection order proceedings that occur in England and Wales, and applies only to those proceedings where they occur in the family court. During Second Reading, I explained that the Bill seeks to include FGM protection order proceedings within the definition of “family proceedings” for the purpose of the Children Act 1989. This means that in future, during proceedings for an FGM protection order, an application for a care or supervision order in relation to a child at risk of significant harm could be made. This would avoid the need for separate applications and potential delay. Other powers of the family court, including powers to make, for example, a prohibited steps order, special guardianship order and family assistance order, would also be available in FGM protection order proceedings. The Bill seeks to close a small, unintended gap—an oversight or anomaly, if you like—in the law and will serve to increase the ability of the court to protect children at risk.
I turn to the amendments in more detail. Amendment 1 seeks merely to remove, in Clause 1(2), the superfluous reference at line 5 to “Section 5A of and”, making appropriate reference to “Part 1 of”. Section 5A of the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 refers to and simply introduces Schedule 2 to the Act, which sets out the legislative detail on FGM protection orders. However, given that the Bill extends to England and Wales only, it is appropriate to refer to “Part 1” of Schedule 2 to the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003. This is necessary, as Schedule 2 also makes provision, in Part 2, for FGM protection orders in Northern Ireland, to which the Bill does not extend.
Baroness Harris of Richmond (LD)
My Lords, as we have heard, the Bill would insert a reference to Section 5A of, and Schedule 2 to, the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 into Section 8 of the Children Act 1989. By doing so, the Bill would amend the Children Act 1989 to state that proceedings under Section 5A of and Schedule 2 to the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 are “family proceedings”.
I pay tribute to the work of my noble friend Lady Featherstone for her long-standing commitment to fighting FGM. Unfortunately, she is not able to be in the Chamber today to speak in Committee, but I know that she very much supports the intents of the amendments.
We on these Benches are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, for bringing this sensible and valuable change to the law, and to the Government for their backing. As we heard, these amendments are technical in nature, and we are very much supportive of them. It is vital that we continue the fight against this deplorable practice, and we should be using every tool available to us to ensure the safety of these young girls.
Baroness Gale (Lab)
My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley of Knighton, said, these are technical amendments, and I am pleased that he was able to bring them before the House today. He explained in detail exactly what they mean, and there is little to add other than to say that we fully support them, and that we know that they will help to make this Bill a much better Act when it comes on to the statute book. I know that the Government will support this as well. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, and I look forward to seeing this on the statute book very soon.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in today’s discussion and, in particular, the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley of Knighton, for his Bill and the enormous amount of time and effort that he has devoted to it.
As the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has explained, the purpose of his Bill is to amend Section 8(4) of the Children Act 1989—the 1989 Act—to bring proceedings for female genital mutilation protection orders, or FGMPOs, within the definition of “family proceedings” for the purpose of the 1989 Act. Bringing FGMPO proceedings within the definition of “family proceedings” would mean that, in future, an application by a local authority or the NSPCC for a care or supervision order in relation to a child at risk of significant harm could be made during FGMPO proceedings. This would avoid the need for separate applications and potential delay. Other powers of the family court, including powers to make, for example, a prohibited steps order, special guardianship order or family assistance order, would also be available in FGMPO proceedings.
Female genital mutilation, or FGM, is an extremely painful and harmful practice that blights the lives of many girls and women. This Government continue roundly to condemn the practice of FGM and are determined to see it eradicated in this country and elsewhere. That is why the simplification of process intended by the Bill is sensible. It adds to the measures which the Government have brought forward to tackle FGM issues. It is also why the Government supported the Bill at Second Reading, subject to the minor and technical amendments put before the Committee today.
The Government believe that the amendments provide necessary clarity on the extent and scope of the Bill—that is, they clarify that the Bill applies to FGMPO proceedings only in England and Wales and does not inadvertently extend to Northern Ireland, and it excludes FGMPOs made during criminal proceedings which are distinctly criminal proceedings and not family proceedings for the purpose of the Children Act 1989. The Government are very pleased to support the Bill, subject to these minor amendments being made, and I too commend them to the Committee.
Lord Berkeley of Knighton
Lord Berkeley of Knighton
Children Act 1989 (Amendment) (Female Genital Mutilation) Bill [HL]
Monday 12th November 2018
(6 years ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Children Act 1989 (Amendment) (Female Genital Mutilation) 2017-19 Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: HL Bill 28-I Marshalled list for Committee (PDF) - (24 Oct 2018)
Children Act 1989 (Amendment) (Female Genital Mutilation) Bill [HL]
Monday 19th November 2018
(6 years ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Children Act 1989 (Amendment) (Female Genital Mutilation) 2017-19 Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: HL Bill 28-I Marshalled list for Committee (PDF) - (24 Oct 2018)
Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)
My Lords, I beg to move and in so doing record my thanks for the support I have received from all sides of the House, from the Government Whips’ Office and in particular from the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Vere. I hope that the Bill will receive an equally warm embrace in the other place.
Children Act 1989 (Amendment) (Female Genital Mutilation) Bill [ Lords ]
Monday 25th February 2019
(5 years, 8 months ago)
General CommitteesRead Full debate Children Act 1989 (Amendment) (Female Genital Mutilation) 2017-19 Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 28-I Marshalled list for Committee (PDF) - (24 Oct 2018)
The Chair
The procedure this afternoon is slightly unusual, so I will outline it as best I can. A Second Reading Committee is a slightly different type of Committee. The Committee is charged with recommending to the House whether the Children Act 1989 (Amendment) (Female Genital Mutilation) Bill ought to be read a Second time. The debate in Committee replaces a Second Reading debate in the House. After the Committee has made its recommendation, the question on Second Reading in the House will be decided without further debate.
The rules governing a Second Reading debate in the House apply to Second Reading Committees, so Members may speak more than once only by leave of the Committee, or through interventions. Normally at this stage I would call the Minister to move the motion, but in view of the history of the matter I shall ask Zac Goldsmith to do so.
Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)
I beg to move,
That the Committee recommends that the Children Act 1989 (Amendment) (Female Genital Mutilation) Bill [Lords] ought to be read a Second time.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. Hon. Members will have heard that the Bill is a private Member’s Bill—a few moments ago, very briefly, it was not, but it is again, and I am grateful. I thank the Government, who have provided time for the debate, and my hon. and learned Friend the Minister for their collective efforts to protect girls who are at risk of FGM.
Much has been said about why we are in Committee now, and in particular about the role of the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope)—not much of it has been all that polite. I do not want to dwell on that aspect of the matter, other than to say that the Bill is exactly the sort of measure for which private Members’ Bills are useful. It is a small, uncontroversial but important amendment to the law that would not sit easily in any Government Bill currently going through Parliament. I am delighted to have the Government’s support, but I acknowledge that the Bill was introduced by the Cross-Bench peer Lord Berkeley, who became aware of an anomaly in the law and decided to act. He piloted the Bill through the other place with huge passion, clarity and decency.
Although, like everyone in the room, I have known about female genital mutilation for many years, it is only relatively recently that I have been actively engaged in campaigning on the issue. That is largely thanks to the powerful work of FGM survivor and campaigner Nimco Ali, who will be known to numerous members of the Committee. She is an inspiration and I hope that the Bill will go a small way towards honouring her efforts, and those of the many women standing up to FGM in the UK and across the world.
The Committee will be familiar with the horrors of FGM, but they bear repeating, up to a point, to remind us why the Bill matters so much. According to the World Health Organisation, FGM includes
“all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons.”
It is almost always carried out on young children, and rarely by medical professionals. It has no basis in medicine or, despite what we are often told, particularly on social media, in religion. The practice is often wrongly blamed on Islam, both by extremists who want to excuse it and by others who want to use it as a stick to bash Islam as a religion. In reality, the practice predates Islam and the Koran neither advocates nor justifies it.
The consequences of FGM, of course, can be extreme, and include severe pain, excessive bleeding, infection, menstrual problems, pain during sex and childbirth, and deep psychological trauma. The consequences can last for the rest of the person’s life. It is estimated that around the world at least 200 million women and girls alive today have undergone FGM. In England and Wales, the figure is believed to be approximately 137,000, so it is also a UK issue.
When an urgent question was asked about the Bill on 11 February, several colleagues raised concerns about male circumcision. Whatever one’s views may be on that issue, it is self-evidently not comparable. The medical equivalent of FGM for a man would not be circumcision; it would be removal of the entire head of the penis and much more besides. Had that ever been a cultural practice, I suspect that it would not have lasted more than a generation at most.
FGM has been specifically illegal in the UK since the Prohibition of Female Circumcision Act 1985, which was replaced by the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003. The 2003 Act, which made it illegal to assist someone performing FGM or to commit FGM abroad, was amended by the Serious Crime Act 2015, which introduced mandatory reporting of FGM and created FGM protection orders. Such orders, which courts can issue to protect girls who have undergone FGM or are at risk of becoming victims, can include any appropriate “prohibitions, restrictions or requirements”, such as forcing the surrender of passports to prevent travel abroad.
The UK was the first country in the world to create a dedicated anti-FGM aid programme. An initial £35 million was pledged in 2013 and an additional £50 million was announced last November. I was delighted to see the Department for Education’s announcement today that FGM will be a compulsory part of all sex and relationships education for secondary school pupils.
The legal and financial apparatus to protect girls against FGM is not insubstantial, but as yet there is no hard evidence of a meaningful decline. In 2016-17, the NHS reported 9,179 cases of FGM, of which 5,391 were newly recorded. It is a source of huge concern that the first successful prosecution for FGM occurred only in January this year, after numerous failed attempts. There is a lot more still to be done, which is why this small but important Bill needs the Committee’s support. I do not pretend that by itself it will stop FGM, but it will provide another legal tool—potentially a crucial one—in the fight against it. Let me briefly explain why.
At present, the Children Act 1989 allows courts to make an interim care order: an instruction to a local authority to share parental responsibility for a child, such as when making decisions on where the child should live or how its welfare should be maintained. To make such an order, which can last up to eight weeks and can be renewed, the court needs to be
“satisfied…that the child concerned is suffering, or is likely to suffer, significant harm”.
I am sure that we all agree that a girl who has undergone or is likely to undergo FGM is suffering or is likely to suffer significant harm. At present, however, the 1989 Act does not allow interim care orders to be issued for FGM. Under section 37, a court may direct such an order to be made only in “family proceedings”, which are defined for the purposes of the Act in section 8. The definition covers the Family Law Act 1996, which deals with non-molestation orders, the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, which concerns divorce, and various statutes relating to domestic violence and forced marriage, but not proceedings under the Female Genital Mutilation Act. As a result, it is not open to a judge to issue an interim care order for FGM. That is clearly an omission in the law, and it means that our courts do not have the full suite of powers necessary to protect girls who are at risk.
As Lord Berkeley pointed out when introducing the Bill in the other place, a family court has more powers to protect a girl at risk of forced marriage than to protect a girl at risk of FGM. That needs to be evened out. As David Maddison—the family lawyer who raised with Lord Berkeley that omission in the law—has pointed out, it is a genuine practical concern, not just a theoretical one. There have been occasions when the police have sought an FGM protection order in the family court and the judge has wanted to employ the powers of the local authority in an order. Under the present law, however, judges cannot compel the local authority to act, so they have had to rely on encouragement. The Bill will grant the power that has been missing by inserting proceedings for FGM protection orders made under the Female Genital Mutilation Act into the section of the Children Act that defines which family proceedings constitute grounds for making an interim care order. What it proposes is pretty simple and uncontentious.
I do not imagine that the Bill will lead to a vast number of new care orders being issued—I understand that they are rarely used—but it is vital that judges have all the power we can give them to protect girls who are at risk. At present that is simply not the case. I acknowledge that the Bill alone will not stop FGM from happening, and to anyone who argues that it is not enough, I would simply say that I agree. We need to see much more done to supplement the existing legal powers. That means better mental health support for survivors; better education, so that young girls and boys grow up knowing that FGM is wrong; identifying girls who are at risk; and ensuring that aid money is spent as effectively as it can be, to support heroes campaigning at the grassroots in countries in Africa and Asia where FGM is still prevalent, such as Jaha Dukureh from Gambia, who managed almost single-handedly to force the Government there to change the law to ban FGM.
I look to the Minister to assure us that the Government will redouble their laudable efforts in all these areas. If the Bill protects just a handful of girls from undergoing the horror of FGM, then we will have done something worth while in passing it into law.
Carolyn Harris (Swansea East) (Lab)
I support the Bill, which frankly should have been brought in in Government time anyway. Although I have already shared my dismay at the actions of the hon. Member for Christchurch, I genuinely welcome the fact that the Government have acted so quickly in bringing the Bill to a Second Reading. Any Bill that streamlines and quickens the process of keeping a child safe is a positive one.
Correcting the gap in the Children Act means that applicants will no longer have to have separate proceedings for FGM protection orders. Bringing FGM protection orders within the definition of family proceedings will ensure that the family court and the High Court can apply for care or supervision orders in the same proceedings, thus avoiding unnecessary delays. That small amendment to the law will make a huge difference to a young girl’s life.
The true number of women and girls affected by FGM is difficult to ascertain, given the secrecy around the practice. In July 2017, NHS Digital published experimental statistics for England that showed that between April 2016 and March 2017 there were 9,179 NHS attendances where FGM was identified or a medical procedure for FGM was undertaken. It is therefore a scandal that the first prosecution for FGM in the UK was earlier this month, even though it has been criminalised since 1985. Once again, I call on the Government to take further steps to ensure that the right procedures are in place to bring about more prosecutions, and that parents who are complicit in these procedures understand that there are consequences for their actions. Although the Bill takes positive steps in protecting the vulnerable, the Government need to do more to ensure the safety of women and girls.
Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)
It is good to be here today to play a part in this small but significant step towards trying to stop girls suffering FGM. I welcome the Minister’s prompt response and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park on bringing forward this private Member’s Bill. I acknowledge Lord Berkeley’s work in this area and Nimco Ali’s vigorous campaigning, which has brought the issue to the fore for many of us.
I add my disgust to what others have said about this completely abhorrent practice. It is shocking that it happens not only around the world and in Africa, but here in the United Kingdom. As my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park mentioned, it has awful consequences for the girls and women who suffer it, from the sheer pain and risks of infection, to the lifelong consequences, which include mental and physical scarring, problems with childbirth and risk of death. We should do all we can to stop it, but clearly that is not easy. Despite the fact that FGM has been illegal in this country since 1985, there has been only one successful prosecution, so it is hard to stop.
NHS data tells us that FGM is happening in not insignificant numbers, so we must do whatever we can. The Bill is one step towards doing something. As my hon. Friend said, it will not completely stop FGM, but it is one step, along with education for girls and for adults who might think that FGM is okay; identifying girls at risk from FGM, and taking more steps to reduce those risks; and encouraging people who have suffered or who know that FGM is going on in their communities to speak up and to take action.
More must be done to ensure successful prosecutions when FGM occurs. We need to send out the strongest possible message that, as a society, we are completely against FGM and do not want it to happen in our communities, or to women and girls around the world. We must do everything we can, so I am glad to support the Bill as a step in that direction.
Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)
It is a pleasure to speak in this Committee, which is timely because public awareness of the abhorrent practice of FGM has increased over recent months and years. As the momentum is firmly behind positive action to ensure that women and girls are fully protected, we as legislators have a duty to strengthen the existing laws, to ensure that the courts have the necessary tools and powers not only to prosecute those who facilitate FGM, but to safeguard victims and those at risk. That is what the Bill does.
Prevention is always better than cure. In the Bill we have the opportunity to protect those in our society who do not have a voice or who cannot speak for themselves because they are children. Unlike male circumcision, the World Health Organisation is clear that FGM offers no health benefits but causes serious harm to women and girls. That can include: severe pain; excessive bleeding; risk of infections; urinary, menstrual, sexual and psychological problems; an increased risk of childbirth complications; and, in the most severe cases, death.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park indicated, the campaign against FGM in British society is not, as some people have suggested, a war against religious groups or cultural practices; it is simply about doing what is right, so that women and girls can live a normal, healthy life and have control over what happens to their own bodies. We must recognise that for almost all victims of FGM it is not their choice to be cut, because they are mostly minors. In other cases, victims are coerced into the procedure, heavily influenced by dominant family members or those who play central roles in their communities.
Despite significant progress in strengthening anti-FGM laws in recent years, and the steps that agencies such as social services have taken to identify those most at risk, when the Bill was introduced in the other place there had been no successful prosecutions in the UK. It is therefore bitter-sweet that, as the hon. Member for Swansea East highlighted, the first successful prosecution for the offence of FGM, in addition to failing to protect from the risk of genital mutilation, was brought at the beginning of this month. During the trial, the court heard that the accused had coached her daughter to lie to the police so that she would not get caught. That is perhaps the single piece of evidence that best highlights why the Bill is required.
The Bill clearly has cross-party support. If it allows the courts to safeguard a small proportion of girls at risk, it will have done its job. However many girls we will protect through the Bill, that will be far better than what we have now. I am delighted to be able to support it.
Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe—our paths seem to cross quite frequently when considering private Members’ Bills, and it is always a pleasure.
I wholeheartedly support the Bill. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park on his persistence and determination in ensuring that it reaches Second Reading. I am pleased to see the Minister in her place and welcome her. I was one of a very few Members who were in the Chamber when the Bill was objected to. The disgust and disappointment on both sides of the House when the Bill was blocked were clear. I made a point of encouraging the Minister, when an urgent question was brought on 11 February, to bring forward the Bill as quickly as possible. I am grateful that she has responded. I shall not delay the Committee long, but I want to raise two questions and thought that it would be easier to do so in a short speech, rather than through interventions.
First, how many cases before the family courts does the Minister anticipate will be directly affected by the Bill? My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park mentioned that around 137,000 women and girls in this country have been affected by FGM. Will the Minister anticipate how many of those cases may go before the family courts?
Craig Tracey (North Warwickshire) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park on bringing forward the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole is right to raise the number of cases involved. He served, as I did, as a Parliamentary Private Secretary in the Department for International Development. Will he join me in welcoming the fact that although the Bill will help relatively low numbers of people in this country, DFID’s work around the world since 2013 has helped millions of women avoid FGM? There has also been more education around the world, thanks to the Department’s excellent work.
Michael Tomlinson
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention, not least because I look back fondly on my stint as a PPS in the Department for International Development—a wonderful Department that does much good across the world. The matter that we are considering is a good example of the work it does, and we should all be proud of it. Whenever I am challenged about why we spend money on foreign aid, I say that we should be proud to stand up and say exactly what we do—which in this case has been to help millions of girls across the world. I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and indeed to my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park, who also mentioned DFID’s work.
My second question arises from the fact that we have heard from several Members that there has been only one successful prosecution. I may be going slightly broader than the Minister’s remit this afternoon, but I still want to challenge her on what more can be done, within the ambit of the Bill or otherwise, to ensure that there will be successful prosecutions whenever FGM is carried out in this country.
The Bill clearly makes a technical amendment to the law, but I like to think that it is achieving something more than that, because we are debating it in Parliament and highlighting the issue. That is important in itself.
Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)
It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. I thank all Members who have contributed to the debate: the hon. Members for Erewash, for Mid Dorset and North Poole, and for Faversham and Mid Kent. I thank the hon. Member for Richmond Park for sponsoring the Bill, and for his detailed speech and obvious commitment to the issue.
The debate has in many ways been quite traumatic to listen to, but the cause is one on which we can all work together, as my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East made clear. The Bill addresses a barbaric practice that has no place in a modern society such as ours, but which unfortunately still exists. Female genital mutilation is a horrific abuse of children of all ages, particularly those who have not reached puberty. It can have a profound and devastating impact long into later life. In the short term, it causes severe pain, with the risk of excessive bleeding, infections and urinary issues, and possibly even death. In the longer term, it causes menstrual and vaginal problems, issues relating to sexual intercourse, and complications in childbirth.
According to overwhelming consensus in the medical profession, FGM has absolutely no health advantage. As the World Health Organisation puts it, there are “no…benefits”, but “only harm”. It is an abhorrent practice that constitutes a violation of the human rights of women and represents a stark reminder of the inequalities between sexes, with women cruelly and inhumanely discriminated against. Yet it still occurs. Some estimates suggest that more than 200 million women across the world have been victims of FGM. The World Health Organisation labelled it “A Global Concern”, concentrated in regions and communities across Africa, the middle east and Asia. However, as so many Members have said today, it happens right here in the UK.
Despite being illegal since 1985, statistics published by NHS Digital show that between April 2015 and March 2016, FGM was identified in 9,223 attendances at NHS trusts and GP practices, 6,080 of which were new cases. In the following year, 9,179 attendances included 5,391 new cases. The most recent statistics show 2,320 attendances in the first three months of 2018, of which 1,030 were newly recorded women or girls. However, given the known obstacles associated with reporting and recording FGM—the act is likely to be committed by a family member or an established and respected member of the community, for example—the real figure is likely to be even higher.
Female genital mutilation is occurring, yet prosecutions of those committing it are not. Clearly, the statistics paint a stark picture that shows that more must be done, which is what the Bill seeks to do by giving the courts the ability to include local authorities in protecting against FGM. Currently, female genital mutilation protection orders are the best device for acting against FGM. They allow a court to present prohibitions, restrictions or requirements, where it sees fit, to protect a girl who has already been or is at risk becoming a victim of FGM. Examples might be the prohibition of travel or passport surrender to prevent a girl at risk from being taken abroad for FGM. Use of such protection orders, however, appears minimal. Ministry of Justice figures show that only 205 FGM protection orders had been made up to the end of December 2017 since their introduction two and a half years earlier.
The Children Act, however, allows judges to make temporary care orders if they are concerned about a child’s health, with section 8(4) listing the areas in which that is applicable. For a child at risk of molestation, violence or a forced marriage, for example, judges can force the relevant local authority to intervene and to provide interim care to ensure the child’s safety, but FGM is not listed under that section, so judges cannot do the same for young women faced with that repugnant practice. The Bill seeks to amend that apparent oversight, listing FGM as one of the stand-alone statutes in section 8(4) of the Act and allowing judges to intervene directly and to involve local authorities in FGM cases.
That proposal, as many have said, is certainly no panacea for the widespread practice of FGM in the UK—much more needs to be done to eradicate it. Does the Minister agree that we need to tackle the cultural conventions in communities in which FGM is commonplace through education and awareness? Does she agree that confidence must be given to members of those communities to speak out against those who perform such operations? Will she tell us what steps have been taken to increase the number of prosecutions of those who are identified?
The Bill is certainly a welcome step in the right direction. As my colleague Baroness Kennedy said in the other place, at the very least
“it adds to the armoury of those who hear these cases”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 20 July 2018; Vol. 792, c. 1420.]
That can only be a good thing. It gives judges and local authorities greater scope to address and, crucially, prevent FGM, by adding an extra tool.
It is incumbent on all in Parliament to do what we can to tackle the devastatingly damaging practice of FGM. In that spirit, the Opposition will certainly not stand in the way of a reasonable Bill such as this, which we welcome as it seeks to do just that.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Lucy Frazer)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park for his support for the Bill, for sponsoring it through the House and for his commitment to protecting young women. Like him, I also pay tribute to Nimco Ali for her campaigning in this important sphere, and recognise the work of Lord Berkeley in bringing the Bill forward.
As others have said, female genital mutilation is a barbaric and illegal act. Many have referred to the effects of FGM; I will repeat them and refer to the leading judgment of Lady Hale in the Supreme Court case, where the question was whether the risk of FGM amounted to persecution. She held that it did, and in coming to that conclusion, she stated that the procedures
“are irreversible and…last a life time. They are usually performed by traditional practitioners using crude instruments and without anaesthetic. Immediate complications include severe pain, shock, haemorrhage, tetanus or sepsis, urine retention, ulceration... Long term consequences include…urinary incontinence…and sexual dysfunction… It is likely that the risks of maternal death and stillbirth are greatly increased”.
The Bill before this Committee is designed to further protect victims of this horrific practice. The Bill ensures that, if a local authority wishes to bring a care or supervision order in relation to a child at risk of significant harm, it can do so during proceedings for an FGM protection order, avoiding the need for separate applications and potential delay. This change in the process, which is the sole purpose of this Bill, is an obvious and uncontroversial remedy for this small gap in the law and will supplement the measures that this Government have brought forward to tackle FGM.
The hon. Member for Swansea East and my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole rightly highlighted the lack of prosecutions in this area. They are right to state that we must do what we can to increase prosecutions so that more people can be brought to justice for this horrific act, but, as the hon. Member for Ashfield rightly identified, one of the difficulties in bringing people to justice is that this act is committed within families. Another difficulty relates to the age of the victims, who cannot speak out when they are so young. This is an issue that affects not just this country; there have been only a small number of prosecutions across many countries in Europe.
Michael Tomlinson
The Minister is absolutely right when it comes to evidence, but are there any lessons that we can learn from jurisdictions abroad, even though there are equally small numbers of prosecutions in Europe? What more can we learn? What more can we do to ensure that of these 135,000 victims, more than just one case is prosecuted in this country?
Lucy Frazer
That is an important point and a challenge; I am sure the Crown Prosecution Service is looking closely at that. Others have made the broader point about education and the hon. Member for Ashfield has challenged the Government on what more we can do. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park, I am very pleased that today the Department for Education has announced that education on the issue of female genital mutilation will take place in schools.
My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole also asked about how many cases will come before the court in respect of this private Member’s Bill. I answer honestly that we do not expect the number to be large. We cannot say with exact precision how many there will be, but, as others have said, if by some small amendment we can protect any women at all—whether that number is large or small—from the horrific consequences that many hon. Members have outlined, we should do so. Given the impacts, that is what we are doing through our support of this legislation.
Finally, I thank hon. Members from across the Committee for the united and consensual way in which we are proceeding with this legislation. This is the second Bill that I have had the honour of taking through this Parliament with cross-party support, and I see many hon. Members here who were party to the other proceedings on upskirting. These are examples of the Houses of Parliament at their finest, where we identify issues that affect people and bring them forward, plugging gaps in the law, in a cross-party, consensual way. I am privileged yet again to be part of this very important measure. I would also like to mention the contributions by my hon. Friends the Members for Erewash and for Faversham and Mid Kent. Finally, I am pleased to say that I and the Government support this Bill and commend the motion that the Bill be allowed to proceed to Second Reading.
The Chair
With the leave of the Committee, Mr Goldsmith, do you want to make a few brief concluding remarks?
Zac Goldsmith
I thank Committee members for all their contributions. The Bill, as has been acknowledged, effectively closes a loophole. As my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash pointed out, it is fundamentally about prevention—preventing abuse and preventing harm.
I want very briefly to touch on the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole. He and my hon. and learned Friend the Minister are right that it is impossible to estimate the number of cases involved, but we know that in the year to September 2018, 117 FGM protection orders were issued—up about 20 on the previous year and another 20 on the year before that. That gives some indication of the number that may be involved.
The hon. Member for Swansea East and many other hon. Members expressed disappointment that there has been only one conviction. That point was well made, and I think that disappointment is shared across the Committee.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent, because it was her question at Prime Minister’s questions that secured the formal commitment to make Government time available for the Bill. I am really grateful to her for that, and I know a lot of other people are, too.
We heard two powerful speeches from the Front-Bench representatives, my hon. and learned Friend the Minister and the hon. Member for Ashfield, who both fully support the Bill. I am very grateful to them for that, and for making powerful speeches with great compassion. Finally, I thank you, Mr McCabe, for chairing the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That the Committee recommends that the Children Act 1989 (Amendment) (Female Genital Mutilation) Bill [Lords] ought to be read a Second time.
Business without Debate
Tuesday 26th February 2019
(5 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Children Act 1989 (Amendment) (Female Genital Mutilation) 2017-19 Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: HL Bill 28-I Marshalled list for Committee (PDF) - (24 Oct 2018)
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
For the convenience of the House, we will take motions 12 to 15 together.
Delegated Legislation
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6)),
Exiting the European Union (Atomic Energy and Radioactive Substances)
That the draft Shipments of Radioactive Substances (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 21 January, be approved.
Exiting the European Union (Sanctions)
That the Rules of the Court of Judicature (Northern Ireland) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 (S.R. (N.I.), 2019, No. 8), which were laid before this House on 31 January, be approved.
That the Civil Procedure (Amendment) (EU Exit) Rules 2019 (S.I., 2019, No. 147), which were laid before this House on 31 January, be approved.
Northern Ireland
That the draft Local Elections (Northern Ireland) (Election Expenses) Order 2019, which was laid before this House on 4 February, be approved.—(Rebecca Harris.)
Question agreed to.
Speaker’s Committee for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6) and Order of 19 February),
That, in pursuance of paragraph 2A of Schedule 3 of the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009, Ms Cindy Butts be appointed as a lay member of the Speaker’s Committee for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority for a period of five years from 1 March 2019 to 29 February 2024.—(Rebecca Harris.)
Question agreed to.
Children Act 1989 (Amendment) (Female Genital Mutilation) Bill [Lords]
Monday 11th March 2019
(5 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Children Act 1989 (Amendment) (Female Genital Mutilation) 2017-19 Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 5 March 2019 - (5 Mar 2019)
Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
Members will know that this is a private Member’s Bill, so I will start by putting on the record my thanks to the Government and the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Lucy Frazer), for giving it Government time and for their broader efforts to help tackle the scourge of FGM and to protect those at risk of it. The Bill has passed through the other place and received cross-party support in its Second Reading Committee a fortnight ago and again last week in Committee, and I put on the record again my thanks to the hon. Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero) for her words in Committee and for the cross-party manner in which the issue was tackled.
The Bill was initiated by Cross-Bench peer Lord Berkeley, who became aware of an omission in existing child protection law whereby family courts do not have the power to compel the involvement of a local authority in an interim care order relating to FGM. He decided to act and piloted this simple, two-clause Bill through the other place with passion, clarity and decency, and I am grateful to him. It has been my pleasure to work with the Government to attempt to get the Bill through this place, notwithstanding one or two hurdles earlier on.
I also want to place on the record my thanks to the FGM survivor and extraordinarily effective campaigner, Nimco Ali, who will be known to many Members. She is probably this country’s best-known FGM campaigner, and using every opportunity at her disposal to push the issue right to the top of the political agenda. It was wonderful just three days ago to see on Twitter a picture of her standing in No. 10 next to the Prime Minister. Nimco has taken the issue literally to the heart of Government.
Nimco Ali’s work has extended well beyond what she has achieved in this country. She famously persuaded all three contenders in the 2017 Somaliland presidential election to commit to legislating against FGM, and I do not think that many people thought that she had the slightest chance of succeeding. The election was won by President Muse and, good to his word, he introduced the legislation as soon as he took office. Incidentally, the vote itself was a model election, the first in the world in which iris-recognition technology was used to avoid electoral fraud. In one of the most troubled parts of the planet, we had the extraordinary scene of the contenders shaking hands and accepting the result without any fuss whatsoever—something that we could perhaps learn as we discuss ongoing Brexit problems.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
I commend my hon. Friend for his work on this matter. Given Nimco Ali’s great powers of persuasion and advocacy, maybe a role in the Whips Office might be of use as we approach difficult times.
Zac Goldsmith
My hon. Friend makes a good point. Nimco is effectively my Whip. Most of what I do in this place in relation to FGM is down to her wagging finger telling me exactly what and what not to do. At a recent event with her, someone described me as “Nimco’s intern”, but it is a great honour to be her intern. She is an extraordinary campaigner, and if I can help her in any way, it is an honour to do so.
Members will be familiar with the horrors of FGM, but I think they bear repeating to remind us why this issue matters so much and why it should matter to everyone here. According to the World Health Organisation, female genital mutilation includes
“all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons.”
FGM is almost always carried out on very young children, rarely by medical professionals and rarely with pain relief.
Eddie Hughes (Walsall North) (Con)
My hon. Friend says “very young children” and the information I have read—I do not know whether this is the case—says that FGM is, in some cases, carried out very soon after birth. Has he heard that?
Zac Goldsmith
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I believe that the average age is five, which implies that girls are subjected to FGM at a very, very young age. FGM is a practice that has absolutely no basis in medicine.
Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)
FGM is completely shocking, and it is not something I knew anything about until it was raised up the political spectrum a couple of years ago. The House recently talked about sex and relationships education. Will FGM be a central part of that so that people in this country are educated about what is actually happening?
Zac Goldsmith
My hon. Friend raises an important point. Had we been having this debate two weeks ago, I would have said that I hope so. There have been subsequent announcements—I think we had an announcement from the Department for Education on the day the Bill was in Committee—that that is exactly what will happen, with education being introduced at the appropriate level so that children, both boys and girls, know that FGM is a practice we should not tolerate.
Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)
My hon. Friend describes the horrors of FGM vividly. Does he agree that, in a way, it is a form of child abuse?
Zac Goldsmith
I could not agree more vehemently with my hon. Friend. FGM is not just a kind of child abuse; it is child abuse by any definition or metric.
I said earlier that FGM has no basis in medicine and, despite what we are often told, nor does it have any basis in any religion. The practice is often wrongly blamed on Islam—this can particularly be seen on social media—both by extremists who want to justify or, in some cases, even advocate FGM and by others who wish to use FGM as a stick with which to bash the religion itself. In fact, the practice predates Islam, and the Koran neither advocates nor justifies it in any way at all.
The consequences of FGM can be extreme. It can lead to severe pain, excessive bleeding, infection, menstrual problems, pain during sex and childbirth, and deep, long-lasting psychological trauma. In fact, the effects of FGM can, and often do, last for the duration of a person’s life. It is estimated that, around the world, at least 200 million women and girls alive today have undergone FGM. In England and Wales, shockingly, the figure is around 137,000, although not all of them were subjected to FGM in either England or Wales.
I apologise to those of a sensitive nature, but during a recent urgent question on this issue, after the Bill was blocked by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope), a number of colleagues raised concerns about male circumcision as if there were some kind of comparison between the two. Whatever our views on male circumcision, it must be obvious that it does not compare to FGM. The male equivalent of FGM would not be circumcision; it would be the removal of the entire head of the penis and much of the shaft, too.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
We often hear this argument comparing the two, but male circumcision, in my experience, is rarely, if ever, done to subjugate the boy, whereas FGM is very clearly done to end women’s sexual pleasure.
Zac Goldsmith
The hon. Lady is exactly right, and I thank her for her intervention. It is also worth saying that, were a culture to experiment with such an extreme form of male circumcision on a comparable level to what young girls are experiencing around the world, I suspect it would not last more than a single generation, and it certainly would not require legislation and a campaign of the sort that Nimco Ali and her colleagues have waged.
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that such horrendous abuse and its lifelong effects cannot possibly be justified on the basis of cultural practice?
Zac Goldsmith
I could not agree more strongly. In fact, partly on the instruction of Nimco Ali, I am co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on female genital mutilation. Early on, the APPG took evidence from a wide group of people, all of whom had been through different degrees of FGM themselves, and it was clear talking to them that their lives have, in many respects, been defined by what they went through. They were all committed to campaigning to stamp out this practice, and none of them would have any truck with the argument that this is a cultural practice and that it would be insensitive for the British Parliament to try to legislate against it or for the Department for International Development to commit funds to try to prevent the practice.
Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend for the huge amount of leadership he has shown on addressing this hideous crime. This is a busy night in British politics, but does he agree that the fact so many of us are present this evening is a real sign that this House says every single action must be taken to rule out this crime in our country?
Zac Goldsmith
I could not agree more, and I am grateful to colleagues for being here to take part in this debate. I do not want to jinx it, but I hope this simple Bill will go through without a Division, which makes the presence of so many Members even more valued.
The anti-FGM legislation in the UK is not insubstantial—we have actually done a fair bit. FGM has been illegal here since the Prohibition of Female Circumcision Act 1985, which was replaced by the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 that made it illegal to assist someone performing FGM or to commit FGM abroad. The Serious Crime Act 2015 amended the 2003 Act to introduce mandatory reporting of FGM and to create the FGM protection orders that courts can issue to protect girls who have been or may become victims of FGM, which could include, for example, forcing the surrender of a passport to prevent travel abroad.
In addition to those laws, we can collectively be proud that we have taken a lead globally. The UK was the first country in the world to create a dedicated anti-FGM aid programme, with an initial tranche of £35 million pledged in 2013. Only a few weeks ago, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development committed a further £50 million, which has yet to be allocated, for the one purpose of helping countries around the world, but mostly in Africa.
Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)
My hon. Friend is right to emphasise the international nature of FGM, but does he agree that the Government have committed some £100 million-worth of funding to the ending violence against women and girls strategy in this country, too? We must ramp up these efforts.
Zac Goldsmith
I could not agree more, and I am glad my hon. Friend has raised that point. FGM is a form of extreme violence against women and girls.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
On the issue of young girls being taken abroad to go through the horrific experience of FGM, did my hon. Friend see the article by the campaigner Leyla Hussein in The Sunday Times over the weekend in which she described what happened to her aged seven? Does my hon. Friend think this extraordinary, powerful article is something that should be shared widely among other parliamentarians?
Zac Goldsmith
I thank my hon. Friend for bringing that to the House’s attention. I know Leyla relatively well. In fact, she was one of the first people to give evidence to the all-party group, and we have had meetings subsequently. I have not read the article, but I can imagine how powerful it must be given the experience she has been through and given her advocacy on this issue. She is an extraordinarily powerful campaigner.
Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on the work that he and this Government have done, but does he agree that the Home Office still has work to do on having a joined-up approach? I raised the case of my constituent Lola Ilesanmi on the Floor of the House, as her daughter was under threat of FGM. My constituent’s violent ex-partner was trying to coerce her into going back to Nigeria to have her daughter cut, and the UK Government were unwilling to give her leave to remain. She has had her stay extended, but she still does not have indefinite leave to remain and there is still a threat to her daughter. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that more joined-up working is still required?
Zac Goldsmith
I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention and I agree with it, as this is a cross-cutting issue. A colleague suggested earlier that this should form part of personal, social, health and economic education in this country, which it now will, but it is a Home Office issue and a health issue, too. It covers a lot of different Departments. If there is anything at all that I or the all-party group and my colleagues on it can do to help in the case the hon. Lady has just raised, we are at her service and will do what we can.
Despite the laws we have in place and the injection of funds to campaigning on this issue around the world, clearly there are gaps in the law and the problem has not gone away. In 2016-17, the NHS reported 9,179 cases of FGM, of which 5,391 were newly recorded cases. As hon. Members will know, there has been only one successful prosecution for FGM, after numerous failed attempts; this came to an end last week with a 37-year-old woman being sentenced to 11 years.
Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend look to the record in France, the approach the French take in dealing with FGM and their success as a source of ideas that we could follow to help cut down on FGM in the UK?
Zac Goldsmith
We have looked at that in the all-party group. The French engage in a much more interventionist approach, with, for example, inspections of young girls. Most of the people who have given evidence to our group feel that it would not fit this country; they feel it would be stepping over a line. However, another area where the French have been more robust than we have in this country has been in trying to identify people at risk. Certain people are at risk and others are not. Where someone has not been subjected to FGM and their parents were not either, the likelihood of their going on to subject their own child to it is very small, although it is not zero. In other families where it passes from generation to generation, a newborn girl clearly is at risk. The French are much more robust than we have been in this country on that.
Johnny Mercer (Plymouth, Moor View) (Con)
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend and to his work on this, as well as that of our mutual friend Nimco Ali, who has championed this from the start. Does he agree that FGM has little to do with religious or racial sensitivities, and is straight-up child abuse and should be called out as such? Does he welcome the first successful prosecution of someone for FGM in this country only two weeks ago, the length of the sentence and the deterrent it can be in some of our communities, where some people will feel that there is no point reporting this because it will not be prosecuted? Does he agree that the length of the sentence sends a message and is encouraging in this fight against FGM?
Zac Goldsmith
I strongly agree with my hon. Friend on that. Indeed, I am going to take this opportunity to quote from what was said in response to the conviction by the National Police Chiefs Council lead on FGM, Commander Ivan Balhatchet:
“Female genital mutilation is a barbaric and violent crime—a violation of human rights—often with lifelong consequences, committed by the people children should be able to trust the most.”
He continued:
“Today’s sentencing will act as a deterrent and a warning that our society will not accept this child abuse, but prosecutions alone will not solve this problem.”
Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend’s work on the all-party group and with campaigners reveal a reluctance on this among groups of people to whom children are presented, for whatever reason? We are all familiar in our constituencies with what happens when a child is discovered to have bruising or possible signs of maltreatment. Following cases such as that of Victoria Climbié, there is almost a lurch in the other direction to immediately assume that there is a child abuse problem, but perhaps that has not happened enough in respect of FGM. Is he confident that legislation such as this is going to make it increasingly easy for those cases to be presented as child abuse?
Zac Goldsmith
I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention. I cannot give him a scientific answer, but I can tell him that the evidence the all-party group received from those people who have been through FGM absolutely concurs with what he has just said: there are parts of the establishment and social services, and people within the education system, who are very nervous indeed about pointing the finger on FGM. There is a concern about trampling on cultural sensitivities. The view of the people we talked to, like my view and, I suspect, that of many in the House today, is that those sensitivities should be pushed to one side. This is a very direct form of child abuse; child abuse is child abuse, and it is our responsibility as adults and the authorities to stamp it out at every opportunity. That message has been unambiguous, in all the evidence we have taken from those people who have been through FGM.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
I wonder how we can convince people who think this barbaric practice is decent, such as the families involved, that it is not. How do we get to those families? Does the all-party group have any answer as to how we stop mothers and fathers taking their children and allowing this sort of thing to happen?
Zac Goldsmith
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I know, because the evidence shows, that a shift is happening. I mentioned Nimco Ali’s campaign in Somaliland. It is not one where she is having to bash her head against a brick wall. Every member of the newly elected Somaliland Government is on board in a mission to eradicate FGM. In Hargeisa, the capital, huge posters have been put up and paid for by government, although they were designed by the campaign groups at the grassroots, telling people that FGM is not only illegal but unethical and immoral, and without any basis whatsoever in religion—this could not be clearer. I realise I did not answer an earlier intervention on that point.
Nimco is not the only person who has that kind of electrifying impact in individual countries. Another such person is Jaha Dukureh, who was originally from the Gambia, moved to New York and then went back to the Gambia. Like Nimco, she persuaded the Government not only to legislate against FGM, but to put resources into those people at the grassroots who are campaigning to change hearts and minds. By all accounts, she is succeeding on an extraordinary scale. I am going to come to this a little later when I wrap up, but there is such an important role for the Department for International Development to play. We can be proud of what we have done, but we have to make sure the next raft of money, the £50 million that has been pledged, is invested in the right groups and the right campaigns.
Hannah Bardell
The hon. Gentleman mentions the Gambia. A friend of mine was, unfortunately, forced to move back there, having done a lot of work in Scotland on FGM and having helped to co-ordinate the FGM strategy in Scotland. She has now set up an NGO called Women in Liberation and Leadership, and she is supporting a young woman called Binta—that is not her real name, because we are trying to protect her—who was subjected to FGM, was raped by an older man, and has been subjected to terrible persecution by her own family and been cast out by them. We are now raising funds to try to get her into a safe house. Does the hon. Gentleman think that she is the kind of person we could do more to support and more to reach out to?
Zac Goldsmith
I absolutely do, and I strongly encourage the hon. Lady to link her friend up with Jaha, who is now a high-profile and significant figure in the Gambia. She is one of the world’s most important FGM campaigners. Indeed, she was nominated for the Nobel prize last year. Again, I would be happy to talk about that after this sitting, to see whether I can do something to link the hon. Lady’s friend up with the right people.
Clearly, there is more to be done, both here and abroad, but this Bill is part of that. I am not going to pretend that it will stop FGM—it will not—but it does provide another potentially crucial legal tool in the fight against it. I want to explain briefly what the Bill does and why it matters. First, let me point out that it has just two clauses, the second of which provides only for the Bill’s extent, commencement and short title. I therefore wish to focus on the first clause, which is the only substantive one.
At present, the Children Act 1989 allows courts to make an interim care order—an instruction to a local authority to share parental responsibility for a child. Such an order can last up to eight weeks and it can be renewed, but that can be done only if there is a belief that the child in question is suffering or is likely to suffer significant harm. The local authority would then be part of any decisions relating to where the child should live or how their welfare should be maintained. I do not think anyone would argue that a girl who has undergone or is likely to undergo FGM is not suffering or likely to suffer significant harm, but the 1989 Act does not currently allow interim care orders to be issued for FGM. A court may only direct an interim care order to be made in “family proceedings”. Section 8 of that Act defines what is meant by “family proceedings” for the purposes of the Act. It contains various statutes relating to domestic violence, forced marriage and so on, but it does not include proceedings under the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003. The effect of that is that it is not open to a judge to issue an interim care order for FGM. Clearly, that is an omission in law—I do not think this is deliberate—but it means that our courts do not have the full suite of powers that they need to protect girls who are at risk.
As Lord Berkeley pointed out when he introduced the Bill in the other place, that means that although a family court can protect a girl who is at risk of forced marriage or domestic abuse, it cannot protect a girl who is at risk of FGM. That needs to change. David Maddison, the family lawyer who raised this issue with Lord Berkeley, has pointed out that this is not an academic or abstract concern; it is a practical one. There have been occasions when the police have sought an FGM protection order in the family court and the judge has wanted to employ the powers of the local authority in an order but has not been able to. The Bill will grant the power that has been missing.
All the Bill does is to insert the proceedings for FGM protection orders from the 2003 Act in the section of the 1989 Act that defines which family proceedings constitute grounds for an interim care order to be made. To be clear, it inserts that part of the 2003 Act that relates to FGM protection orders in section 8 of the 1989 Act. That makes FGM a family proceeding for the purpose of issuing care orders under the 1989 Act. I hope the House agrees that this is a simple and uncontentious change. If the Bill passes, it is unlikely to lead to the issuing of a huge number of new care orders—they are rarely used—but it is important that judges have all the power we can give them to protect girls who are at risk. Currently, that is simply not the case.
I have no doubt that when some Members speak they will argue that the Bill is not enough to stop FGM entirely. I am not going to argue with that. Those Members are right that we need better support, particularly mental health support, for survivors. We need better education so that girls and boys grow up knowing that FGM is wrong. We need to get better at identifying at-risk girls, as in France where they do it better than we do.
Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, who is making such a powerful speech. He mentioned the important role of education, and it is of course about education not only in the UK but internationally. On this Commonwealth Day, will he pay tribute to the work of the Commonwealth and the Department for International Development in ensuring that education is really having an impact worldwide?
Zac Goldsmith
That is the very next point I was going to make, so I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I have said it twice already but I shall say it a third time: I am proud of the work that the Department for International Development does. It is a Department that is often hammered by our newspapers, but it does really important work. The £35 million that it has already spent has changed lives and saved lives, and if the £50 million that has been committed is spent properly—I am sure it will be—it will go on to save lives as well.
I mentioned Nimco’s work; I do not want to embarrass her, but I know that the amount of money that it took to get her to Somaliland to do the work that she did was so small as to barely qualify as a DFID grant. I know that the work of Jaha, whom I mentioned earlier, in the Gambia has cost so little that it would only just register or qualify as a DFID grant. There are so many people like that out there who could do with the kind of support that DFID can provide.
My hon. and learned Friend the Minister provided lots of reassurances when she spoke in Committee about what the Government are doing and how committed they are to tackling FGM. I do not know whether protocol means she will have the opportunity to repeat those reassurances later—
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Lucy Frazer)
indicated assent.
Zac Goldsmith
I see her nodding her head, so she will. I look forward to that.
If this tiny, uncontentious Bill protects just a handful of girls from undergoing the horror of FGM, we will have done something worth while and important in passing it into law. I close my speech simply by thanking all Members present for their support, which I hope the Bill will get at the end of the day. I particularly thank the Clerks, the Whips Office and the Ministry of Justice Bill team, who have been so helpful in getting us to this point. Finally, I thank Lord Berkeley again for winning the arguments next door and handing us a Bill in such good order.
Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith). The Bill passed through Committee with a large degree of consensus. Although I pressed the Minister on some issues, as I will today, it was pleasing that when something of this magnitude came before us we could seek consensus to bring about change.
Once again, we have an opportunity to discuss the Bill and what more we can do in the House to tackle female genital mutilation, because it is an abhorrent act, an abuse of children of all ages, and one we must endeavour to eradicate. The impact on women and girls is devastating and can still be felt long into later life. In the short term, there are risks of severe pain, infections and excessive bleeding. In the years following, there can be complications relating to childbirth, sexual intercourse, and menstrual and vaginal problems. I repeat the words of the World Health Organisation in saying that there is “no benefit, only harm”. Despite that, instances of FGM in the UK are occurring, which is where the Bill fits in, so I shall again outline Labour’s position on it.
To give further power to judges to intervene directly in instances of FGM with temporary care orders through a technical amendment to the Children Act 1989 is a reasonable and sensible action. Female genital mutilation protection orders are currently the best tool to tackle FGM, but allowing local authorities to provide interim care and ensure the safety of those at risk is a welcome extra step. The ability for local authorities to act in this way is currently present for cases in which a child is at risk of abuse, molestation, forced marriage or other abuses, so it seems only right and proper that it should also be present if girls are at risk of FGM.
As it stands, it is difficult to know the full extent of FGM in the UK and just how many people are affected. NHS Digital has produced experimental statistics, but many recorded cases are not necessarily newly committed instances of FGM. Estimates are significantly higher than the figures produced, and we know that, given the obstacles associated with reporting and recording FGM—for example, the act is likely to be committed by a family member—scores of cases go unreported. I therefore press the Minister to outline what the Government are doing to provide more accurate data and recording of FGM occurring in the UK, to help us fully to understand the extent of the problem.
Just as the scale of FGM in the UK is likely to be larger than it seems initially, so the Government must do more to tackle it. Last month, we saw the first prosecution for FGM in the UK. With estimates of those affected in the tens of thousands, it seems staggering that that is the sole example of a prosecution for carrying out the act. The Minister has spoken in the past about strengthening the laws on FGM in a number of ways, to increase protection for girls at risk, but clearly such measures fall short when compared with the numbers actually prosecuted. Just as they identify who is at risk, will the Minister tell me what the Government are doing to identify the perpetrators of this barbaric practice and to bring them to justice?
I welcome the Minister’s previous comments on the cross-departmental approach that the Government are taking to tackling FGM. Such an approach is necessary and appropriate for a problem that must be tackled not only through prosecutions, but through education and by tackling the culture and assumptions that lead to FGM, as Members have said. Will the Minister tell us more about what the Government are doing to increase education and awareness of FGM, and about the ways in which schools and local groups in at-risk communities are being involved?
Does the Minister recognise that it is cuts to other Departments, much like those to the Ministry of Justice, that have ruined the vital provisions on which many vulnerable women at risk of FGM depend? Our NHS is strained at every level, after years of underfunding; schools are under-resourced and understaffed; local authority budgets have been slashed to the bone; and there is a catastrophic shortfall in the provision of children and women’s services. These frontline services are best placed to identify, intervene and prevent FGM, but they have been decimated by the Government’s near decade of austerity. What assessment, if any, have the Government made of the impact of the austerity agenda on the tackling of FGM? What extra provision are the Government affording the services tasked with addressing it?
Ultimately, this is a welcome Bill. Despite the efforts of a certain Member on the Government Benches, we are pleased to see it brought before the House again. It provides an extra tool for local authorities and judges to fight FGM and prevent its occurrence. As my colleague Baroness Massey said in the other place, at the very least it
“adds to the armoury of those who hear these cases, and that can only be to the good.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 20 July 2018; Vol. 792, c. 1420.]
Alone, though, it will not be enough to protect the many girls throughout the UK who are at risk of this barbaric abuse. It must be met with greater action by the Government, and I hope the Minister commits to just that this evening.
Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
I am proud to take part in this debate today. I would like to commend not only Lord Berkeley in the other place and my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) for the work that they are doing, but the Government for realising that legislation in this place can be improved and that FGM has absolutely no place in society. We have a great deal of legislation in place at the moment to try to prevent FGM, but it is not working as well as it should. I am proud to take part in a debate where that is acknowledged. I am proud, too, that we are supporting those who, clearly, have done a huge amount of work to identify ways in which we can improve the legislation on our statute books. Making existing legislation more effective by enabling care orders to be issued in connection with girls who are at risk of FGM will help to save some girls. It will also help to outlaw this abhorrent practice in some communities. As hon. Members said earlier in this debate, the number of Members who are here this evening shows the strength of feeling on this issue across the House.
The Bill in front of us today comes at a timely point, following as it does the first conviction in the UK for female genital mutilation. I applaud the Government for being so gracious with their support for this Bill. I am sure the Minister will come on to talk about that later. FGM has been illegal in the UK since the Prohibition of Female Circumcision Act 1985, which was then replaced by the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003, and extended by the Serious Crime Act 2015. Successive Governments of all colours have wanted to try to act on this issue, but today’s Bill shows that we have not gone far enough and that we do need to go further, and I hope that it enjoys wholehearted support across the House.
If we are to have really effective legislation, then as legislators we should acknowledge that law alone is not enough and that there is a much broader context: how society views these issues; how our schools deal with things such as relationships and sex education; and how the Government put this issue into a much broader strategy on violence against women and girls. We should be encouraged by the current situation where, as has been said, we have not only relationships and sex education, but, for the first time in more than a decade and a half, guidance on how an issue such as female genital mutilation should be dealt with in our schools. The small point I would make is that it is not enough to have guidance and to make it mandatory that schools deal with the issue; we have to make sure that it is being implemented in practice on the ground.
These are not easy issues for schools to deal with, and sometimes they can get the wrong message from this place—for example, that schools can allow parents to withdraw their children from such lessons. That is a “get out of jail free” card in communities where these issues are difficult, and we cannot send that message out from this debate today. We must not only encourage schools to engage with parents on the issue of FGM, but ensure that they are doing so. It is important that schools ensure that parents do not withdraw their children from relationships and sex education. We need to do all we can to ensure that schools see their responsibility in this area. It is, of course, right that we not only give parents the respect that they deserve in terms of their views on relationships and sex education, but respect the rights of children to get the education that they need to live in a modern society, and that must include understanding the appalling impact that FGM can have on women’s lives.
James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) on opening this Third Reading debate. I have just come from a meeting in the Boothroyd Room of Sierra Leonean women who are discussing their attempts to eradicate FGM in Sierra Leone. The First Lady has recently sent rather mixed messages about FGM and has relied on cultural practice as a part justification. Does my right hon. Friend agree that we need to send out a very clear message that religious and cultural sensitivities cannot and must not be used as a shield to hide behind when practices such as this are being discussed either in school or in this place?
Mrs Miller
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise that point. We should not allow anybody to hide behind religious or cultural practices when it comes to relationships and sex education. Every child in this country deserves to understand how these issues affect them, and the Government are absolutely right to have made it mandatory for children to attend relationships and sex education. It is particularly important that relationships education has been made mandatory among primary school aged children; it is only by teaching children what a good relationship looks like that we can hope to be able to give them the wherewithal to tackle the online world in which they live. That is a very important enabler that the Government need to ensure is in place. It is not enough for them simply to pass this Bill today, to put it on to the legislative books. They need to ensure that parents are engaging with it and that teachers are confident about the issues so that they can talk to parents.
It is also incredibly reassuring that the Government are looking at this issue as part of their wider cohesive strategy on violence against women and girls that crosses Government Departments. On the Women and Equalities Committee, we do not always encounter cross-departmental strategies on issues to do with discrimination. We have been extremely impressed with the commitment of the Government to have not only a strategy in this area, but a refresh of the strategy on a regular basis, which I was pleased to see will also happen when it comes to sex and relationships education as well. If we are to make this particular piece of legislation work as it should, it needs to be seen alongside the other issues that are covered in the violence against women and girls strategy—issues such as the link between pornography and violence against women, online abuse, and the impact of alcohol on violence against women. The Government are right to have this sort of comprehensive strategy in place. Again, I think they will find extremely strong support from all parts of the House for their very collaborative and cohesive approach.
Mrs Miller
I give way to my hon. Friend and fellow Select Committee member.
Eddie Hughes
I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way, not least because the purpose of my rising was to commend her for the excellent work that she has done. This piece of legislation is part of a jigsaw that plays into how the Government have served to deal with violence against women and the equalities agenda more generally in society. These are very valuable pieces of work that she and her Committee have done, and I just wanted to commend her for that work.
Mrs Miller
I thank my hon. Friend for doing that. He is right to say that it is a jigsaw of issues that must fit together. I see Members sitting on the Front Bench from three different Departments, working seamlessly together on these issues. This Government have a lot to be commended for, especially with regard to the cross-departmental working on these issues, to the way in which they have characterised these sorts of acts against women as cowardly acts, and to making sure that the right support is in place for victims and for bringing perpetrators to justice.
In any of those issues—I am sure that those Ministers sitting on the Front Bench will be very aware of this—there is a need to have support in place, as the pressure that additional legislation brings, particularly on our colleagues in local government, cannot be ignored. I am particularly grateful to the Government for making sure that additional resources will be available to local authorities to deal with any extra pressures that this amendment to legislation imposes. When it comes to issues to do with children, where pressures are already acute, we cannot expect local authorities to be effective unless they have the resources to put the necessary support in place.
Sarah Champion
I completely agree with the right hon. Lady on the need for additional resources for local authorities. Does she share my concern that the National FGM Centre—a collaboration between Barnardo’s and the Local Government Association—is having its Government funding stopped in 2020, especially given that it is the main resource that local authorities are using at the moment?
Mrs Miller
The hon. Lady raises an important point about specialist provision and resources. I hope that the Ministers on the Front Bench will take that point away and consider how we can ensure that very specialist resources are available to local authorities, because it will be difficult for them to have that sort of expertise in-house. The hon. Lady makes an extremely valuable point, as somebody who has campaigned vigorously and with incredible compassion on these issues.
I want to underline the important role of the Department for International Development, which other Members have referred to in interventions. We should be proud that our country is the first country to have a dedicated anti-FGM programme, working across the globe. It is important for the House to underline that the Department has supported 8,000 communities to abandon, or campaign to abandon, FGM.
The Government have supported the Girl Generation programme—the largest ever global work on the issue, with over 900 organisations working to end FGM. The work that is happening outside the UK is not only important for women in those countries, although that would be justification enough to do the work; it is also invaluable in underlining the human rights of those women in their own countries. Last but by no means least, this work helps to change attitudes that can still influence communities in the UK. The importance of DFID’s work has to be acknowledged. Those who may be naysayers about our contribution to this global world should reflect a little on their views when they consider how this work can so enormously change the lives of millions of women across the world.
This is not a debate in which we will be thinking about internal processes too much, but it would not be right not to point out at least that the reason that we are here today is because of our private Members’ Bills system, whereby an individual Member—quite unrepresentative of the majority feeling of the House—can block a Bill. This is not just a Bill that will do something very small and day to day; it is so important to women’s lives. The whole House has to acknowledge that the need for reform of our private Members’ Bills system is long overdue, and we need to find a way of giving priority to that reform of this place. If we do not, we continue to run the risk of this House being brought into disrepute by individual Members exercising what might be a very principled point of view on the procedure of this place—although I am not sure that this particular objection was as principled as that. We need to acknowledge that this place can look prehistoric from the outside. If we are going to regain the trust of people in Parliament, this sort of reform has to be given priority at some point in the parliamentary calendar.
Zac Goldsmith
I could not agree more strongly with my right hon. Friend on the need to reform the process. Does she agree that this kind of small, technical amendment—which is effectively what this Bill is—is exactly where the PMB comes into its own, because there is no natural legislative hook on which the Government can hang it?
Mrs Miller
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If we are going to have a Parliament that works correctly, not just in a post-Brexit world—which is probably more of a challenge than we are thinking about at the moment—but in a modern, transparent and media-literate world, we have to look carefully at the way in which our systems work to enable Members to make such small but important changes in a timely manner, without the need to go through the parliamentary procedures that this Bill has had to go through simply because of the views of one individual.
I very much wish this Bill well. It is a great example of making good legislation even more effective. It will amend the Children Act 1989 to make female genital mutilation protection orders available, and to ensure that we can protect more children who find themselves in a situation where the adults around them may not have their best interests at heart, and who may be at risk of this appalling practice. This Bill should receive support from every single Member in the House.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
It is a great honour and privilege to be present in this debate because I really think that this House works best when we come together to protect the most vulnerable. I hugely congratulate the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith), who has done so much to secure the safe passage of the Bill. I add my support to the recommendations made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero) on how we can better protect all children from female genital mutilation.
As has been mentioned, FGM is not a cultural practice and we should not be seeing it as such; this is child abuse and it must be dealt with harshly, as child abuse. FGM has been illegal in the UK since 1985, but the lack of prosecutions has enabled people to come up with the myth that it is a cultural practice, rather than a crime against a child. I am very pleased that last week the strong sentence of 11 years was given to someone who facilitated FGM. That is the sort of message that needs to go out—that we will act, prosecute and jail people for this crime against children.
FGM is a big issue in this country. NHS Digital statistics from April 2017 to March 2018 show that there were 4,495 newly recorded cases of women and girls where FGM had been identified, that 6,195 individual women and girls had an attendance where FGM was identified or a procedure relating to FGM was undertaken and that there were 9,490 attendances reported to NHS trusts and GP practices where FGM or a procedure relating to FGM was identified. These figures, though, will be a massive underestimate of the actual problem of FGM in this country because of the hidden nature of the practice. Research has shown that there is no local authority in England and Wales where there is not a woman living with FGM. It is estimated that 103,000 women between the ages of 15 and 49, and 10,000 girls between the ages of four and 14, have undergone FGM, and there are a further 60,000 girls at risk of FGM in the UK.
I would like to bust the myth that this is just about UK girls being taken abroad for this practice. It is not—it is happening in this country as well. In recent years, there has been a phenomenon of cutting parties where people have figured out that it is cheaper to bring the cutter into this country and invite girls round—well, invite their parents round—for them to be cut. This is a UK problem.
That is not to say that girls are not taken abroad. Yes, this happens to young girls, but the most horrific case that I heard of was of a woman from London, born and brought up here. When she was 15, her parents asked if she would like to go back to the country that they grew up in to see what it was like. Of course, she welcomed this opportunity, and, at 15, went back. Literally as she came off the plane, she was introduced to the lady who was going to take her back to the village. At 15, this Londoner was taken back to the village, pinned down and cut. How does someone get over something like that? To be honest, she has not got over it.
Since 2015, health professionals, teachers and social workers have had a mandatory duty to report known cases of FGM to the police, but that is when it happened to people under the age of 18. I would like there to be consideration of support for women over the age of 18 once the crime has been committed. I had a meeting with a dozen women. Between them, they had about 20 children, so they had been to at least 20 GPs, 20 midwives, 20 nurses, 20 consultants—20 health professionals. Almost all the women had been advised to have caesareans because they had been stitched so closely that the damage it would have caused to even try to give birth naturally meant that it was not going to happen. The health professionals recognised that, because of their FGM, they could not give birth naturally. Not one of those women had that raised with them, ever, by any of those health professionals. No one offered them support or the chance for a prosecution—and that is just a group of 12 women that I met.
We talk about what is happening in France. I have only recently discovered that in the French health system, someone who has been subjected to this crime gets reconstructive surgery as an adult. A friend of mine, Marie-Claire, said that after having her reconstructive surgery, she felt like a proper woman—a sexual woman. She felt able to have sexual relations with her partner for the first time. That literal rebuilding of someone’s self-esteem as well as their body is something we need to be doing in this country. If someone was in a car crash and needed facial rebuilding, we would see that as something that the NHS would do, so why do women not automatically get that right for this crime?
This is also about justice. We need these women to know that they can get justice. As I said, it is great that the prosecution has happened, but there are many historical cases where justice has not even been mentioned to these women because what they have been through has not been recognised.
Having undergone FGM is a real barrier for women in coming forward for things like cervical screening. Many women do not want to go to a GP to report gynaecological issues because they are concerned that it will be raised and there may be prosecutions against family members. We need to get the reality of what is going on out there so that people can access the proper health support they need. If a woman is repeatedly missing her smear, rather than just writing her off and seeing her as someone who is not engaging, we need to be asking questions: “Are there reasons why you don’t want to come for your smear, and is there a way we can help and support you to overcome that?”
Hannah Bardell
The hon. Lady might be aware of the project My Body Back, set up by an incredible woman called Pav. It has a clinic in London and one in Glasgow, providing services for women who have suffered sexual violence or, indeed, FGM. I would commend those services to any woman who needs that specialist care.
Sarah Champion
I have heard of it but not visited. However, that is two centres for an estimated 160,000 women and girls. We need to have more and it needs to be statutory.
When we talk about prosecutions and mandatory reporting, the crime has already been committed and the damage, both physical and psychological, has already been done. We need to be doing much more about prevention. I would like to speak in support of the National FGM Centre, which is a collaboration between Barnardo’s and the Local Government Association. It receives funding from the Home Office, the Department for Education and the Department of Health and Social Care. None of those Departments is continuing its funding beyond 2020 because it is deemed that the centre ought to be generating its own income. I understand that. However, its main support services go via local authorities, which are already suffering under huge cuts and do not have additional resources to start buying in specialist support for FGM.
The National FGM Centre does great work. It embeds FGM specialist social workers within multidisciplinary safeguarding teams. It works from the bottom up, empowering communities to tackle this crime themselves and to get the word out that it is a crime and it should not be happening. The centre also does amazing training for professionals and provides a knowledge hub so that all local authorities can share the information. With the best will in the world, if the funding stops, the prevention work will stop with it.
Mrs Miller
I thank the hon. Lady for giving way. We agreed earlier that it is important for local authorities to have the funding, but I am not sure whether I agree that we should not encourage local authorities to take on this responsibility, because surely getting them to prioritise funding of facilities such as the one she mentioned is a great way to try to raise their awareness of this issue.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. We have 13 Members waiting to speak, and the Minister needs to wind up the debate. I do not want someone to miss out on the opportunity to make a speech. Can we all look after each other in this important debate?
Sarah Champion
I thank the right hon. Lady for her intervention, but I disagree. We need a centre of expertise. When resources are tight, we need to be able to push and make local authorities prioritise. If the Minister wants to do that and guarantee that all local authorities will make provision and ring-fence that money, I will be happy, but there still needs to be that centre of expertise.
The other area that I would like to touch on is relationships and sex education. I welcome the fact that children will now be taught about FGM at secondary school, but we need to teach them about it at primary school as well, because the majority of the crime happens to primary age children. They need to be empowered to understand what is going on and that it is a crime so that we can get ahead of this. All that said, I am hugely grateful that we are taking forward this amendment to the law.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), who is a bright beacon when it comes to this issue and the safeguarding of children—the most vulnerable in our communities up and down the land. I am tempted to say in passing that, at a time when our politics and this House are so divided on other issues, debates such as these remind us of one of the benefits of this job, which is the coming together of the House to discuss in a united, informed and respectful way an issue that matters to the future of our country and can certainly be deemed to be for the public good.
I listened with the most careful attention to the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller). It was interesting that she used the term “prehistoric” to describe the way that this House can often look. It is not the first time that I have made this comment: I am the Member for North Dorset, and not everything that comes out of Dorset is Jurassic.
Simon Hoare
I can assure the House that I am not.
I echo entirely the comments that my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke made about the all too demonstrable need for reform of how we deal with private Members’ legislation. As my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) said, this is a simple Bill of just two clauses, but it is terribly important, and it beggars belief that a Bill of such importance was blocked for no particular apparent reason. It reminds me of the dictum of the late Ronald Reagan—if the 11th commandment is, “Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Conservative,” my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) stretches that almost to the point of breaking.
My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park rightly praised the work of Nimco Ali. I do not want to interject a moment or two of partisanship, but I will pause to make this point. I thought it was heart-warming—absolutely heart-warming—to see the pictures on social media last week of Nimco and our right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, at the very heart of Government, discussing FGM and other women’s issues. For my party, which all too often allows itself to be painted as out of touch or not interested in such issues, if we wanted a startling picture showing why that is not the case and how our party is able to deal with these important issues, that was the picture. The fact that my hon. Friend has taken up this issue and run with it with such passion and so authoritatively—he is too modest, I know, and he may blush—is so important. He has added not only to a public health issue, but, I suggest, to the profile of our party on this issue.
I rise to speak in this debate as the father of three daughters: Imogen who is 10, Jessica who has just turned nine and Laura who is six. At least, that is what Laura’s birth certificate says; from the way she talks to me, she is six going on 26. When a parent sees the little, fragile bodies of small children, we do have to wonder where on earth somebody came up with the idea of FGM. As others have said, this is not a medical procedure and it is not the religious requirement of one faith or another; it is quite simply child abuse. If it was a practice in which a young girl’s arm had to be broken or some fingers or toes removed, we would have been in a state of uproar. However, over the years, there has been a squeamishness among politicos about dealing with some of the issues that have masqueraded or hidden under the cloak of cultural sensitivity. I could not care less who, if anybody, is offended by this Government and this united Parliament standing up and saying, “It is wrong, it is abuse, it has got to stop, and if you do not agree with us in that analysis, then the full weight of the law will be brought to bear upon you.”
Eddie Hughes
My hon. Friend mentions that this is not a medical procedure. One of the problems is that the medicalisation of the procedure can sometimes be seen to give legitimacy to it, and that is far from being the point. It is frequently the case that the procedure is carried out where there is no antiseptic, so it is incredibly dangerous with the possibility of future infection for the woman and of ongoing medical problems.
Simon Hoare
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It carries all the concomitant health risks of the backstreet abortionist and of the barber surgeons of the 18th century, but things have moved on so much since then. That is why it is extraordinary, when we pause to think about it, that this debate or this Bill is even required.
A number of right hon. and hon. Members have spoken, perfectly properly, about awareness. This debate and the Bill, the event at No. 10, the work of the all-party group on female genital mutilation—my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park leads it with such conviction—and the work of people such as Nimco Ali are so important in raising awareness. As the hon. Member for Rotherham intimated in relation to smear tests, raising awareness of such an issue will obviously involve certain personal issues—about personal health, or perhaps about embarrassment—and I think this is frightfully important. Those women who have been genitally mutilated should in no way be made to feel ashamed or reluctant to seek medical advice and help or to turn up for smear tests. Let the House say clearly, “It is not your fault.” We are focused properly on blaming the perpetrators and on arresting the practice in this country and—I say on Commonwealth Day—hopefully throughout the Commonwealth and elsewhere.
I say to those who have been mutilated, “Do not hide in shame or embarrassment. Something horrid was done to you and, as a civilised society, we are here to help.” If this debate helps to raise awareness among community leaders throughout the local government family, in sports clubs, in law enforcement and in our GPs’ surgeries, that is good. A problem, which FGM clearly is, ceases to be as much of a problem when it is talked about frankly, openly, honestly and with no sense of shame.
I have to confess to the House that, much to my wife’s amusement, I cannot watch “Casualty” because I do not like the sight of blood, which makes me feel a little wobbly. My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park explained in typically gentle terms what the male equivalent of FGM would be. He rightly made the point that the linkage between or coalescence of FGM and circumcision is erroneous. When he described the male equivalent of FGM, several hon. Members, including me, put a handkerchief to their eyes and clenched their knees a little tighter. If this was a male issue, it would not have been tolerated for as long as it has been. The fact that it has affected little girls is all the more shaming and should prompt, as it is doing, greater action and attention.
I welcome the prison sentence that was handed out recently and the fact that anyone who commits FGM now faces a prison sentence of up to 14 years. It is also important that anyone found failing to protect a girl from the risk of FGM will face up to seven years’ imprisonment. That takes away the protection for aunts, cousins, grannies—or grandfathers, for that matter.
It is perfectly proper that the Bill is an amendment to the Children Act 1989 because, as has been pointed out, the issue affects children.
In making my final point, I will breach the ministerial code as it relates to Parliamentary Private Secretaries—the Whips are on duty; they can sack me at their leisure—by speaking, albeit briefly, about the work of Departments, starting with the Home Office. I commend my hon. Friend the Minister for Crime, Safeguarding and Vulnerability for her violence against women and girls strategy. The Department for Education is doing very important work. I am delighted to see my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development on the Treasury Bench and I commend the Department’s work. This is a collective, governmental approach to stamping out child abuse. The Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Lucy Frazer), who will reply to the debate, looks at me with a squint in her eye. Indeed, I have neglected to mention the Ministry of Justice, which is putting in the sentences that will ensure that the Bill will be a deterrent.
In a small way, this small Bill takes a huge step for the rights of women and girls. It seeks to end a terrible example of child abuse and I am delighted to speak in support of it.
Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (Tooting) (Lab)
I would like to start by belatedly wishing everybody a happy International Women’s Day. I am sure Members across the House took part in events in their constituencies. It is an honour to be here on the Labour Benches discussing a subject of the utmost importance with Members from across the House. It is worth remembering that while International Women’s Day on Friday saw so many fantastic events celebrating women and young girls from across the globe, there were children being violently abused not just in far flung lands that we have never visited, but right here in the UK. That is why we are all here tonight.
Women and girls face unimaginable pain through the abhorrent crime of female genital mutilation. They also face a lifetime of medical problems as a result. And those are the lucky ones: the ones who do not die from the procedure. As Governments across the world begin to crack down on this horrific crime, there are reports that younger and younger girls are being targeted—girls as young as three. Despite more women coming forward to recount the harrowing ordeals they have experienced, to date there has been only one successful prosecution in this country. As Members have so eloquently articulated tonight, if this were happening to young boys or if this were little girls’ toes or fingers being cut off, we would be doing something.
I stand here with colleagues from across the House tonight and say that this is not done in the name of any religion—certainly not any religion I know—and nor is it acceptable cultural practice in any culture that I know. It must be stamped out and we must take a lead. Together, we must say, as we are doing, that we will not accept it. We must say that the people who are found guilty of committing this barbaric act, and those who know about it, should pay, and pay heavily. It is clear that more needs to be done to prosecute perpetrators far more effectively. That includes ensuring that Members do not block Bills that seek to stamp out this crime and provide victims with justice. Just as we look to support teachers and medical professionals to flag any concerns that a child may be being abused, the Government should provide frontline services with the resources they need to detect the tell-tale signs of FGM and to stamp it out.
I have two young daughters, aged four and five. When I think about them going to school in the morning and standing in line with their friends waiting to go into their classroom, it breaks my heart to think that in our children’s classrooms there are children who are being taken and forcibly mutilated: mutilated without any say in what happens to their bodies; and mutilated without any consequences for the perpetrators of this abhorrent crime. People who commit such barbaric acts need to know that tonight we are saying, “We are watching you and you will be punished.” We need to tackle this at its core and show that people will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
All women and girls need to be valued equally. I hope that by next International Women’s Day, the young girls and women who have been victims of this brutal and horrible crime will have found justice.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
May I just suggest about five minutes each to give everybody equal time?
Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) on bringing forward this addition to the Children Act. I remind him that, although he has been working with Nimco Ali, who is a fantastic campaigner, and Jaha, who has had fantastic success in Gambia, this all started with Jane Ellison, a former Member of Parliament for Battersea, when she formed the all-party group on female genital mutilation. She did some amazing work to bring this issue to people’s attention and she was devastated that there was no prosecution during her time here.
We have just had a prosecution, but it is hard for young people to testify, sometimes against family members, or, if not family members, against people who are friends of the family. It is really difficult for relatively young girls to go through with the prosecution. Although we have had only one prosecution—and it is incredibly important that we have had one—I can understand why we have not had more, but now that we have had that prosecution, I would like to see people feeling less frightened to come forward.
I also believe that teachers need more training to recognise the signs of when girls are going to be taken abroad. I know that it does not happen all the time and that a lot happens here, but some are taken abroad, just as they are for early marriage and forced marriage. Teachers need to be trained to recognise the symptoms of what is happening. Doctors and nurses also need additional training to make them report what they see. Many doctors in the past have seen this but have never done anything about it to protect people, because they believed that it was not their job to do so and that they should let sleeping dogs lie. That really should not be the case, because what is happening to young girls is brutal. There is the risk of bleeding to death. There is a huge risk of infection. Somebody earlier likened this to abortion in the 1950s. It is no better than the knitting needle and the gin, because there is no protection for these girls and absolutely no pain relief for them either. The perpetrators need to realise that we are serious about catching them and stopping FGM in this country.
I congratulate the Secretary of State for International Development, my right hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt), who is sitting on the Front Bench. She has put an enormous amount of work and funding behind trying to stop FGM in other countries around the world. I commend her for her work because it is really important that it is not just us who are doing this; we have to help other countries to stamp it out as well. As was said earlier, we have seen the success in Gambia, which is incredibly important to this campaign. It can be stamped out once we get over the barrier that it is not cultural and not religious—it is just sex abuse for these young girls. We must get that over, and I commend the Secretary of State for the work she has done and the huge amount of resources she has put into this issue.
I also commend the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), who made a very passionate speech, a lot of which I was going to say but I cannot, because she has already said it. What has been really good about this debate is that it has united both sides of the House. We work better when we work together. There are things that divide us, but on issues such as this, we can all work together, just as we can on raising the age of marriage and forced marriage.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. The hon. Gentleman has only just walked in. It would be rather unfair on the other people who have been here. I think he should wait a little while.
Mrs Latham
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I think I know what my hon. Friend was going to say, because he was talking about something that we worked on together to try to bring this issue to the fore some years ago. We have to recognise that what has happened in this country has not been as successful as it could have been. We need people in this country to really go for the perpetrators, and anybody who knows anything should report it to the police. As I said, however, it is very hard for young girls to testify in court against family members or friends of the family, and we have to work together to try to make it easier for these cases to come to court and to have successful prosecutions.
Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) on his work on this issue, particularly the progress of his Bill, and I pay tribute to Lord Berkeley, in the other place, who originally brought this measure forward, and to the vocal and courageous campaigners, such as Nimco Ali, who several Members have mentioned. It is the work of brave women such as her that is making a difference and turning the tide against FGM.
I am going to read out the story of a 14-year-old girl who now lives in the UK and who I will call Aminah, although I warn hon. Members that it might not make for very comfortable listening. She says:
“I was six years old when it happened to me. I knew what was going to happen, I knew they were going to cut me because a lot of my friends had had it done. My friends had told me that it was really painful, that it was horrible, so I was terrified. I was at school, when they told me it was ‘my time’. My uncle and aunt came to take me from the school. It was my sister’s time too - she was eight years old. The woman who cut us was my grandmother’s sister - and she was going to cut us in a tent near a huge tree. They used ropes to tie our legs apart and there were lots and lots of girls there. I could hear screaming, lots of horrible screaming and there was so much blood. Girls were crying. Then they said it was my turn. I ran away - I ran as fast as I could but they sent boys after me and they caught me. They took my legs and my arms and carried me back. One of them was my older brother - he helped carry me back to the cutter. They tied me down, I was fighting as hard as I could, but they were stronger. I was screaming. The old woman, my great aunt, used a razor blade - it was clean and new, but there was no anaesthetic when she cut me.”
Members can find out more about her story on the website of the sexual health charity, Brook. I read it because although we talk about FGM—we normally just use the acronym—it is the stories that really bring home how disgusting and completely abhorrent the practice is.
One of the most harrowing aspects of Aminah’s story is that it was done to her by people she trusted: her uncle, aunt and great aunt. FGM is carried out on girls by people who love them. It is done out of fear that uncut girls will not find husbands and will be ostracised or considered unclean by their communities. Some communities believe it can be used to control female sexuality and increase male pleasure, and it is done supposedly for these girls’ own good, but it can kill. For the majority who survive, the short and long-term health consequences are appalling: there is the immediate pain of being cut without anaesthetic, followed by a long, painful healing process; the risk of haemorrhage; the risk of infection from contaminated instruments; and, in the long-term, very serious health consequences from repeated urinary tract infections, difficulty menstruating and problems with childbirth, not to mention the trauma and psychological damage.
At least 200 million girls and women worldwide have undergone FGM. No religion endorses FGM, but myths and deeply ingrained traditions perpetuate it. In every society where it is practised, it is a sign of deeply entrenched gender inequality, and FGM is happening here in Britain too. According to the NHS, between April 2017 and March 2018, 6,195 women and girls were treated by the NHS for FGM, and in 85 of them, the FGM was known to have taken place in the UK, although the NHS is clear that this data is not complete, so the true figure could be substantially higher. The National FGM Centre estimates that 60,000 girls are at risk of FGM—either of being cut in the UK or being taken abroad to undergo the procedure—and that 137,000 girls and women in the UK are living with the consequences of FGM.
That is despite the fact that FGM has been illegal in Britain since 1985, that the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 created an offence of taking a girl abroad to undergo FGM and that the Serious Crime Act 2015 further extended the law by introducing an offence for failing to protect a girl from the risk of FGM and providing for the anonymity of FGM victims. Currently, anyone who commits FGM faces up to 14 years in prison and anyone found guilty of failing to protect a girl from the risk of FGM faces up to seven years in prison. As we know, last week, the mother of a three-year-old girl was sentenced to 11 years in prison. This was the first FGM conviction in the UK. It is awful, in some senses, that that can be considered a success—a success that a conviction was secured—but it has proved very difficult to secure convictions, and the fact that one has been secured sends, I hope, a strong message that FGM is not okay, and there will be consequences under UK law.
The 2015 Act also introduced FGM protection orders, which give courts powers including the power to remove children’s passports to prevent them from being taken abroad. The Bill will close a small gap in the law to make the process of issuing protection orders a little bit easier.
I will wrap up now, Mr Deputy Speaker, because I can see that you would like me to do so. Let me simply say that ending this barbaric practice, and overturning the misogyny that underpins it—as well as the cultural practices that have enabled it to continue—will not be easy, but the Bill brings us a small step closer to doing so, and every step that can save a child like Aminah from suffering as a result of FGM is a step worth taking.
Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)
Some powerful speeches have been made tonight, none more so than those of my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) and my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately), whose description of FGM was truly horrendous.
As public awareness of the abhorrent practice of FGM increases and the momentum swings firmly behind positive action which will ensure that women and girls are fully protected, we as legislators have a duty to strengthen existing laws to ensure that the courts have all the necessary powers not only to prosecute those whose facilitate FGM, but to safeguard victims and those at risk. This is a simple Bill, but it gives us an opportunity to protect members of our society who have no voice and cannot speak for themselves, namely children.
The campaign against FGM in British society is not, as some advocates of the practice have suggested, a war against religious groups or cultural practices. It is simply about doing what is right, so that women and girls can lead normal, healthy lives and have control over what happens to their bodies. We must recognise that in the case of nearly all victims of FGM it is not their choice to be cut, because they are too young, while older victims find themselves being coerced into the procedure, heavily influenced—as we have already heard—by dominant family members, or by people who play central roles in their communities. As we have also heard, last Friday, 8 March—International Women’s Day—a 37-year-old mother was jailed for 13 years for this and other offences. The judge described the crime as “barbaric and sickening”, and also made it clear that FGM was against the law and a form of child abuse. That single piece of evidence perhaps best highlights why the Bill is required.
The Children Act 1989, as amended, allows a judge to grant an interim care order if there are reasonable grounds to believe that a child has suffered significant harm, or is at risk of suffering significant harm. However, the Act does not currently include the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 in the list of statutes under section 8(4), and that therefore does not constitute “family proceedings”. Had the Bill been on the statute book, a judge might have had the opportunity to grant an interim care order in the case that I have mentioned, thereby protecting an innocent victim from the irreversible pain and trauma with which she will have to live for the rest of her life. The National FGM Centre has estimated that, in England alone, 60,000 girls are currently at risk of FGM. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has said:
“we will not tolerate FGM and not rest until perpetrators of this horrific crime are brought to justice.”
There are some pieces of new legislation that appear to be merely adjuncts to existing laws, but whose long-term consequences may be profound. The Bill definitely fits into that category, and it has been a pleasure to sit on the Committee that has brought it to this stage. However, during proceedings on the Bill, I received emails from academics and lobby groups raising several issues. One individual made a good point when they highlighted the need for community-led educational information, and more support for dialogue with FGM-practising communities. I know from listening to other speakers that that is definitely happening.
It has also been highlighted to me that data may have been misinterpreted. For example, in 2016-17 it was reported that 9,179 cases of FGM were identified in England, of which 5,391 were newly recorded. It is important to note that that does not mean that 5,391 girls had recently been subjected to FGM; that was the number of cases that had been newly identified. Of course, it follows that those new cases may not have occurred in this country.
We must use every tool in our armoury to stamp out FGM, not just here in the UK but across the world. We celebrate Commonwealth Day today, and it is incumbent on our Commonwealth friends to play their part in stamping out this practice. Many countries where FGM is prevalent have laws against the practice, but, as we have found in this country, the enforcement of the law is often the problem.
To eradicate FGM, we need community groups and individuals who are passionate about campaigning to stop it. We need the legislation in place to secure prosecutions, and we need the powers in the Bill to protect those who are at risk. FGM is a human rights issue, a gender equality issue—or, I should say, a gender inequality issue—and a health issue, but justice should always remain our focus.
It is surely not right—indeed, it is shameful—that in our civil society, where the number of at-risk girls is so high, only one person has been successfully prosecuted since the practice was first outlawed in 1985. If this Bill, which clearly commands cross-party support, allows the courts to safeguard a handful of girls who are at risk, I believe it will have done its job. I look forward to its speedy passage on to the statute book.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
Can I just remind people to stick to five minutes, please?
Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) on introducing the private Member’s Bill to deal with this important issue.
Last week we celebrated International Women’s Day, a joyous occasion on which women and girls came together to celebrate their achievements, the women who helped them to realise those achievements and our victories on the long road to equality. Today’s debate reminds us of not just how far we have come, but of how far we still have to go.
FGM is a barbaric practice that has no place in the world today. It is often, as other Members have said, performed by a local cutter—not by someone with any medical skills—in a barbaric way without pain relief. The affected women have their genitals cut into such a state that they end up with significant long-term consequences. As well as the short-term consequences of pain, trauma, shock and bleeding—in some areas of the world where there is little access to medicine, such bleeding can lead to serious infection, sepsis and death—women may experience difficulties passing urine that can go on into the long term, incontinence, frequent and chronic urinary tract infections, pelvic infections, problems with menstruation, kidney failure, cysts and abscesses, difficulties with sexual intercourse and complications with childbirth.
Complications with childbirth are particularly prevalent among those who have had the procedure of infibulation, which is where the vaginal opening is made much smaller. There is the possibility of reversing or undoing that procedure during pregnancy in advance of labour, if midwives and surgeons are aware of it, but women may be left with significant mental health problems afterwards. Some women feel very uncomfortable about the fact that the procedure has been undone, and their family may treat them differently as a result. Indeed, as other Members have suggested, some women will have been sewn up by the time the next pregnancy occurs.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The hon. Lady has clearly outlined what needs to happen legislatively in relation to such physical and emotional abuse. Does she not agree that it is also time for a cultural change in the societies in which it occurs? If a cultural change comes into play, methods and habits will change, so it has to start there.
Dr Johnson
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. He is absolutely right, and I will say more about that later in my speech.
Given how barbaric this practice is, it is surprising how common it is, with more than 200 million women in the world said to be affected by it. Recent statistics show that 150 British-born women were identified by NHS Digital as having had the procedure, and that 85 of them had had it here in the United Kingdom. It is estimated that around 130,000 women in the UK are at risk, and 1,000 new cases have been identified by the NHS this year.
While researching for this debate, I read about the case last month of the first person to be convicted of FGM in this country. It involved a mother who was found guilty of FGM. Her daughter was only three years old. That young girl was pinned down in her north London home and had her genitals cut and partly removed. Her mother claimed that this had been due to her falling on to a cupboard door. In my work as a paediatrician, I have heard some tall stories about how injuries to children might have occurred, but it was clear that the jury did not believe the woman in that case.
Children of that age do not have enough strength to escape the knife or to escape their attackers. That is why we need laws to protect these vulnerable children from a harm that is sadly often perpetrated by those who are closest to them and who should be protecting them the most. I am proud that the UK is a world leader in introducing legislation in this area. Since the passing of the Prohibition of Female Circumcision Act 1985, it has been illegal to mutilate the clitoris or the labia, or to help someone to do that.
The Government improved things further in 2003. Recognising that girls and women were being taken abroad for these procedures, they increased the territorial reach of the legislation so that UK nationals or UK permanent residents taking someone overseas or allowing or helping the procedure to happen overseas would also be guilty of a crime. This was widened further in 2015 to ensure that people who failed to prevent the procedure from happening were also guilty of a crime, and to provide anonymity for victims. The FGM protection order was also created at that time.
Updating these laws is a continuous process to ensure that children are protected. It is right that we have strong sentences of up to 14 years for those found guilty of FGM and up to seven years for failing to protect a child from it, but it has been difficult to get convictions. We need to look further into the reasons for that, and particularly, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) says, into how we can change the culture in society so that FGM does not happen in the first place.
So what does the Bill do? It puts in place a crucial amendment to the Children Act 1989 that adds children’s powers into family proceedings. The Act gave powers to the courts to impose an interim care order, a care order, an interim supervision order or a supervision order. What do these orders do? Essentially, they allow the courts to share parental responsibility and allow local authorities to take children into care. The test that is applied is that there should be reasonable grounds to believe that the child has suffered or is at risk of suffering significant harm. I do not think that any Member in the House would doubt that the risk of FGM would meet that threshold. At the moment, however, if an FGM protection order is being applied for and there is also a desire to apply for an interim care order, they need to be applied for separately, which takes time and creates increased procedure. The Bill will ensure that both can be dealt with in a single process.
David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)
I know that the hon. Lady has a great deal of experience in the medical profession. Does she agree that FGM is nothing but pure cruelty to young children, and that any parent allowing it, no matter what their culture is, should face the full rigour of the law?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I asked people to speak for only five minutes, and I am concerned that some Members might not have a chance to speak. It is only Conservative Members who are waiting to speak, so they are actually cutting into each other’s time.
Dr Johnson
Thank you for that guidance, Mr Deputy Speaker. I will aim to wrap this up quickly.
My final point is that the law is useful, but we also need education. There is a cross-Government strategy to prevent violence against women and girls, and that includes health professionals, identification, mandatory reporting, teachers who are in a trusted position keeping children safe, charities, the work of Nimco Ali and others, international work, DFID’s flagship programmes, UN resolutions and so on. Children need to be educated so that they develop key skills, not necessarily just about FGM in isolation, but self-esteem, social and emotional skills. They should also be taught where to get support if they are worried. All that will empower our young women.
In summary, this amendment to the law will make it easier to protect children from FGM, which is a dreadful form of child abuse. I congratulate those who have successfully campaigned to get the Bill through the House.
Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friends, including my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith), and I will keep my remarks to the indicated time limit, Mr Deputy Speaker. Other Members have made many points already, so I want to make just three further points.
This weekend, I was reading the account of Waris Dirie, one of the world’s premier supermodels, and if we need to remind ourselves of how horrendous FGM is, just listen to what happened to her when she was five years old. Her genitals were completely cut off and then she was stitched closed, because she had to undergo the practice of infibulation, whereby not only were her genitals cut off, but she was left with only a patch of skin, completely smooth except for a scar down the middle, which she describes as being like a zipper. The procedure leaves a miniscule hole, meaning that on a woman’s wedding night—this is quite horrific—the husband has to cut her open or force his way in. No one can read or think about that without finding it horrific. The practice also means that some girls actually pass out during menstruation.
How do we tackle the issue? We must take an international approach, because we know that the desire for social acceptance and the avoidance of ostracism is one of the underlying roots of FGM. Like many Members, when I talk about the international aid budget, I am sometimes challenged on whether it is being spent in the right way, but when we hear stories like Waris’s and those of the other women about whom we have heard tonight, the general public will be behind what DFID is doing.
We must also consider the Bill’s broader cultural context, which includes child marriage. Over 700 million women and girls alive today were married as children, which is why I welcome DFID’s wide-ranging work to reduce FGM, including spending £50 million to support African-led movements to end FGM by 2030. So far, DFID has supported 78,000 communities, amounting to 24.5 million people, and has helped more than 3 million girls. The Department is also supporting the UN to the tune of £12 million to end violence against women and practices such as child marriage and domestic and sexual violence and to help 750,000 women and girls. I think that the general public would agree that that money is well spent when it goes towards stamping out the root causes of such horrific acts.
My final point is about why the problem is so hard to eradicate. We have heard that it is a broad cultural issue, that people are frightened to report it and that it comes with stigma and shame in some communities. The women who carry out the act do so from a place of love. They do it because their ancestors did it to them, so they are doing what they think is right. This is about education, so we need to examine how we teach not just victims and young children, but also the women who carry out the act. We must therefore consider the new sex and relationships education that is being introduced into schools on a compulsory basis, and we must ask ourselves some searching questions as a society. Do we think it is right that parents can withdraw their children from such lessons? How do we tackle the difficult issue of some communities protesting outside schools because they do not like what the Government are trying to teach children when that education involves precisely the issues that we are debating tonight?
We must eradicate the horrific mutilation of young women and girls. I look forward to supporting the Bill and seeing it progress through the House tonight.
Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)
I am delighted to support the Bill tonight. FGM is a hideous crime that has no place in our society, and I am pleased it has been illegal in the UK since 1985 when a law was introduced by the then Conservative Government. The law was tightened up again in 2015 by a Conservative-led Government, which is why it is completely correct that this Government are leading the work again tonight.
It is estimated that 200 million girls and women across the world, over 130,000 of them in the UK, have been subjected to FGM. It has been independently suggested that some 60,000 girls and women in this country are at risk today. We know that, for many of those girls, FGM often happens in another country, which is why it is crucial that we continue to support the work of DFID to make sure our young girls and women are protected not only in the UK but overseas.
I want to use my time to give a strong shout out for DFID’s work. People often ask us on the doorstep what we get from the DFID budget, so I will set out some of the things we are doing with it. Since 2013, DFID-supported programmes have helped more than 8,000 communities—that is 24.5 million people—pledge to abandon FGM. We have helped to make the practice illegal in Gambia, Nigeria and Mauritania, and we have helped Burkina Faso, Egypt and Uganda to strengthen their laws. More than 3 million girls and women have received FGM protection and care due to the work of DFID-supported projects.
The new £50 million programme in Africa will go to projects that seek to change attitudes by supporting grassroots activists, youth initiatives, doctors, midwives and nurses to help end FGM all over Africa. A total of £15 million is going into Sudan to reduce the social acceptance of FGM, and another £12 million will go to the UN trust fund to help protect women and girls in some of the world’s poorest countries from practices such as FGM, child marriage and domestic and sexual violence.
In our debate on Thursday for International Women’s Day, I pointed out that girls in developing countries are two and a half times more likely than boys not to attend school and three times more likely than boys to be a victim of modern slavery. Through DFID, the Government are supporting work across the world not only to reduce and stop FGM but to stop violence against women and to help all girls get the education they deserve. I am thankful for this Bill.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
I rise briefly to support this much-needed amendment to the Children Act 1989. I will chiefly focus my remarks with reference to the sentencing remarks of Mrs Justice Whipple in the central criminal court on 8 March 2019, following the first successful conviction in the UK of the offence of FGM. I understand there is no appeal, so I am not contravening the sub judice rule.
The circumstances of this particular incident have been described as “barbaric” and “sickening,” and they were indeed that. A 37-year-old mother was found guilty of mutilating her three-year-old daughter, and by way of highlighting the gravity and horror of the offence, I hope colleagues will forgive me for some of the graphic description I will relate from the court remarks. The conviction led to an 11-year sentence. During the proceedings, the jury heard a recording of a 999 call in which the mother said that her daughter
“had been trying to get some biscuits and had fallen on metal and the metal had ripped her private parts.”
This was a few hours after she had clearly been mutilated. Mrs Justice Whipple said that by the time the girl got to hospital,
“she had lost a lot of blood, so much so that consideration was given to transfusing her.”
The consultant operated on her that evening. The next remarks are graphic, but they show the reality of the injuries on a child just three years old:
“He observed three separate cutting injuries…one to the labia minora on the right side which was missing; one to the labia minora on the left side which was hanging by a sliver of skin; and one to the clitoris in a curvi-linear shape, with a clot formed beneath it which, when removed, caused the wound to bleed. In his view, there were three separate cuts each of which had been deliberately inflicted by a sharp instrument.”
The judge referred to those injuries having probably been inflicted by a knife, scissors or a scalpel. Four consultants, expert gynaecologists and paediatricians, separately agreed with the view that this must have been deliberately inflicted injury by a sharp instrument and that this must have been part of a joint plan—in other words, at least one other person was involved. The commission of this offence would have required the participation of more than one person. It is particularly offensive therefore that the offence was premeditated by the child’s mother, the person whom this three-year-old should have looked to most in the world for protection, and that it was carried out in her own home, where she should have felt safe. Who is to say how this will affect her ability to trust and form relationships in the future? As the judge said, there were physical consequences, but the “true significance” may become apparent only “in puberty or adulthood” when
“she recognises that her body is different, and that may cause her embarrassment or inhibition in forming intimate relationships.”
In other words, there is a “significant and lifelong burden” for this child to carry.
Many colleagues have said that religious and cultural sensitivities should not be used in any way to justify FGM, and that of course is right. This was a terrible offence. I would go so far as to say that it was evil. It was interesting to note that in the evidence given to the police in a recorded interview this three-year-old referred to a “witch-lady”. Witchcraft objects were found in the home of the convicted individual by the police. This little three-year-old girl has been traumatically harmed, as was her nine-year-old brother, who witnessed his sister’s distress immediately after her injuries. They are both now in foster care, but after the event. It would have been far better if, under the Children Act 1989 as is now proposed, an order could have been made before to protect them from the risk of such gratuitous physical and psychological injuries.
Eddie Hughes (Walsall North) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce). It was also a pleasure to have been in the Chamber for the start of the debate to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) move the motion. It is particularly important, or relevant, that a male MP should be taking this Bill through, because men have so much responsibility for the fact that this practice exists in any form at all. My understanding is that there are examples of FGM in Egyptian mummies, so the practice has been historically prevalent for a very long time. If we ask ourselves why, we see that it is frequently at the behest of, or for the pleasure of, men. Men feel that it is an opportunity to subjugate women by controlling their sexual drive, controlling and containing their sexuality—what an incredible indictment that is. We would think perhaps that that was representative of some historical, barbaric practice that is no longer prevalent in the 21st century, but, as we have heard so many people say in this debate, 200 million women who are alive today could have been affected by FGM, and 135,000 of them are in this country.
Let us think about the stories we have heard. Members should imagine that they are a five-year-old girl who is just starting to feel comfortable in the world and safe and secure in the family and extended family group, when, all of a sudden, for no apparent reason, she is taken to a room, held down and subjected to this incredibly barbaric practice. Depending on where in the world a girl is when she experiences this, it could be done, perhaps if she is lucky—a dreadful use of the word—under some sort of medical circumstance in which at least antiseptic is involved and some sort of anaesthesia administered. But that might not be the case. It might simply be carried out by an old, probably female member of the community with a razor blade or, I have even heard, under incredibly barbaric circumstances, with a broken piece of glass. This is the 21st century—it is not a history lesson—and these things are happening now, on this planet. It is incredible and, as I said, frequently done as an example of how men like or choose to subjugate women.
Is it important that we address FGM? It is essential. It sends out a strong message that Parliament is debating FGM and projecting that message right across the world, in our work through DFID and the Commonwealth, to help others to understand just how seriously we take this issue. It is great to read reports that the Government have invested in the training of 70,000 staff in this country through an e-learning programme, to make sure that people in all areas of Government business understand what the effects could be and implications are, so that they can look out for signs of FGM. For example, people processing passport applications and things like that might understand that young women are being shipped abroad in order for this practice to be carried out.
As men, we should realise that we have a particular duty to speak out on this subject. It has been a pleasure to be part of the debate and to hear other male MPs making the case this evening. It is so great that Members on both sides of the Chamber are standing together.
Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes) and his insight into this severe problem and the historical context of the evils from so many years ago still being visited on children and women to this very day.
So many of the points that I would have made have already been made and I am conscious of the limitation on time. I send my appreciations to the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) for her insight into this problem and the points that she made, and to my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) for his insight into the French system, which is very different from the one in the UK. It is perhaps not right that we look to the French when thinking about what system to adopt in the United Kingdom.
It is a significant problem that FGM was first made a criminal offence in the United Kingdom in 1985 but to date there has been only one successful prosecution. I understand that there have been three unsuccessful prosecutions in the UK. Successful prosecutions, and significant sentences to go with them, would form a deterrent. That would contribute to deterring people from engaging with and supporting FGM. We are right to have a zero-tolerance attitude to FGM and I welcome this amendment to the 1989 Act, but will my hon. and learned Friend the Minister say what more can be done to deliver a zero-tolerance approach to FGM?
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
I shall speak only briefly because at least one more Member still wishes to speak. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) on bringing the Bill back to the Chamber—back from what almost seemed like the dead—and I congratulate Lord Berkeley in the other place on piloting it so effectively.
As has already been said so clearly, and as was concluded by the Home Affairs Committee in its 2016 report, female genital mutilation is an horrific abuse. It is not justified by any religious requirements. There are no medical arguments for it; quite the contrary. Beyond the immediate pain and suffering caused by the procedure, there is ongoing risk of medical complications and lifelong psychological effects for many women many, many years after they suffered the procedure. There can be no question of trying to justify the procedure on the basis of any cultural practices. It is abuse, plain and simple. It is child abuse. It is evil and it is wrong, whether it happens here in the United Kingdom, or anywhere around the world. It is right that we do everything that we possibly can to prevent it from happening. It is also right that, where there is proof of female genital mutilation, we do everything that we can to bring those responsible to justice and make sure that they receive the very, very severest of penalties that are available.
Securing a criminal conviction for FGM is notoriously difficult. Despite the fact that this has been an offence in the United Kingdom since the 1980s, it is only in the past few weeks that a successful prosecution has been brought. The difficulties in collating evidence to a standard that is high enough to secure a criminal conviction mean that, even now, it is often very difficult to persuade witnesses to come forward. Often, by the time cases are uncovered—whether it is by doctors, hospitals, social workers or other agencies—the time for medical proof of who could have been responsible, or even the time that the procedure could have been carried out, makes it very difficult to pin it down to even a location, let alone a specific offender. Therefore, it is particularly important that we do everything that we can to stop it happening in the first place. That is really where these orders have a particularly important role to play, which is why this Bill is so vital in closing one of the loopholes that makes it difficult to secure an order for those children who are at increased risk of being subject to female genital mutilation.
It is perverse that the care orders under the Children Act, which allow for orders to be made in cases where children are at risk of forced marriage or of domestic violence, cannot be used effectively to protect those children from the severe abuse of female genital mutilation. By closing that gap in the law, it means that agencies that go through the courts to take care of children at risk only have to make the single application to secure protection against the full range of risks. That will make girls and women far, far safer.
This is an extremely short Bill. It is a fairly simple change to our legislation, but it could make an absolutely massive difference to far, far more girls and women in this country and around the world than we might be able to imagine.
Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)
I rise briefly to support this excellent Bill and to make two very simple points.
First, as many hon. Members have said, there is no excuse—be it cultural, religious or medical—for any of the practices that are labelled under the broad-brush bracket of female genital mutilation. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately) said, these are often things that are done to young girls by those who love them most. There is an enormous challenge in that, because we should not claim that the people who do this do not love their own children, but they are committing acts of child abuse.
I hope that this law sends out a very clear message that, in this country and hopefully in many others that will follow the lead set by my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith), FGM is not an acceptable practice in the 21st century, and nor should we have allowed it to persist for as long as it has. That is a profoundly important cultural point in a landscape where there is no cultural excuse for a practice that many have quite rightly described as barbaric. I know that this point is not within the Minister’s purview at the Ministry of Justice, but I hope that we can tackle this aspect of FGM in the strongest possible terms, as part of this Government’s and other Governments’ good work on FGM; we need to address an issue that goes beyond simply the legally prosecutable, into a wider set of complex international and cultural dynamics on which we have a duty to lead the way.
My second point is only just within the scope of the Bill, and that is to say that we could have addressed this issue some time earlier were it not for the arcane procedures of this House. It shames us all that this issue had to be taken on in this way. I know that the Minister has stepped into the breach with great enthusiasm because, as both sides of the House have agreed, it is absolutely the right thing for this Government to be doing, but it is not right that the procedures of this House allow us to be in this position. When times are perhaps a little calmer and we are not starting statements at 10 o’clock at night, rather than finishing the business then, I hope that we may be able to address that issue because doing so will allow us not only to deal with such matters with greater speed, but to take on many other issues. I hope that this Parliament can be just as modern as this Government have been in getting with the 21st century.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Lucy Frazer)
The Government are pleased both to support this Bill and to give it Government time. It is a very short piece of legislation. With two clauses, it is a simple Bill intended to fill a small and unintended gap in the law. It will further protect women and girls, and will allow our courts to make orders and to do so quickly—in a single proceeding—to protect children who are at harm. I thank all Members from across the House who have taken part in this important debate.
Many points have been made in the debate, and I will try to draw them all together. As my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) started by saying, there has been a cross-party effort to bring this legislation through the House swiftly and with some consensus. I thank the hon. Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero) for her helpful comments. My right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), in her powerful speech, drew attention not only to the cross-Governmental approach to addressing FGM, but to the presence of so many Departments on the Treasury Bench during this debate. I thank Ministers from the Home Office, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, the Department of Health and Social Care, the Government Equalities Office, the Department for International Development, the Department for Work and Pensions, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, the Department for Education, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the Wales Office and the Ministry of Justice for taking part in this debate through their presence today.
A number of Members have highlighted the importance of this Bill because of the effects on the victims. My hon. Friends the Members for Richmond Park, for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson), for Dudley South (Mike Wood), for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland) and for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes), and the hon. Member for Ashfield, all highlighted these effects. My hon. Friends the Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup) and for North Dorset (Simon Hoare), and the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), said quite rightly that FGM is child abuse.
That point was made in the sentencing remarks of the judge in a recent conviction for FGM. Perhaps those who marked the terrible effects most closely were those who told stories of the impact on the victims, such as the terrible story of Aminah told by my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately) and the horrific story told by my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean), showing us so graphically the terror of the girls who are experiencing this crime and the impact on their lives for ever.
So what are we doing, as a Government, to address FGM? My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park mentioned the legislation that goes back several decades to ensure that we are taking steps on FGM. In 2015, we strengthened the law to improve protection for victims by, for example, introducing a new offence of failing to protect a girl from FGM, and allowing for protection orders. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Chris Green) asked what more can be done. I am very pleased to say that we are taking steps across Government to ensure that we wipe out this dreadful crime. The Home Office’s FGM unit has participated in over 100 outreach events to raise awareness of FGM. The Department of Health and Social Care has provided £4 million for the national FGM prevention programme, in partnership with NHS England. The Department for Education has announced its intention to reform the curriculum in schools to teach children about the effects of the emotional damage, and has provided nearly £2 million for a national programme to improve the social care response to FGM.
However, as my hon. Friends the Member for Redditch and for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) pointed out, it is not just about tackling FGM in this country but tackling it overseas. DFID has done a significant amount of work. In addition to a £35 million package to end FGM across 17 countries in Africa, at the end of last year the Government announced a £50 million package to support an African-led movement to end FGM by 2030. That is the single biggest investment by an international donor.
Many Members referred to the statistics on those who have experienced this horrific crime. As the hon. Member for Ashfield rightly identified, we do not know the precise figures on those who are suffering from FGM in this country who have had that crime perpetrated here, but, as the hon. Member for Rotherham stated, we know that it is happening and that, as the hon. Member for Tooting (Dr Allin-Khan) said, it is happening to children at a very young age.
It is very, very difficult to prosecute this dreadful offence. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), I would like to refer to the powerful speech that the judge made in a recent conviction of a perpetrator of FGM who committed an offence against her daughter. I will read a few of the words from that judgment, which are incredibly powerful. The judge said to the perpetrator:
“You were convicted following a trial of female genital mutilation…The person mutilated was R. R is your daughter. She was just 3 years old when you cut her. FGM has long been against our law. Let’s be clear: FGM is a form of child abuse. It involves deliberate physical mutilation. It is a barbaric practice and a serious crime. It is an offence which targets women, typically being inflicted on women when they are young and vulnerable. It is often done with the collusion of family members. And then it is hidden. This case contains all those features.”
For that particular crime, although there were convictions for other crimes, the judge sentenced the woman to 11 years. As my hon. Friends the Members for Faversham and Mid Kent and for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) rightly mentioned, what is so terrible about this crime is that it was done by someone the victim trusted and in a home where the victim should have felt safe. Those were both aggravating factors in the sentencing.
We are tackling this issue by increasing the protections that we offer to victims of FGM. The Bill will define FGM protection orders as family proceedings for the purposes of the Children Act 1989, which will provide for a simplification in the court process. That is a sensible and practical change, which will allow our courts to make orders quickly, in a single proceeding, to protect children at risk of harm.
I would like to answer a number of the points put to me in the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West rightly referred to the different procedures and medical examinations that take place in France and elsewhere, but those take place in a different social and legal framework from the UK so are not directly comparable. Frontline medical staff have a mandatory duty to report known cases of FGM in under-18s to the police. As my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham) said, there is a need for medical staff to report it.
The hon. Member for Ashfield asked what we are doing to get more prosecutions. There is now an FGM lead prosecutor for each area who liaises with the police. She also asked what we can do to educate more. The Home Office’s FGM unit has participated in more than 100 outreach events and is raising awareness of FGM across the country. As I mentioned, the Department for Education is reforming relationships and sex education and health curriculum guidance, to stipulate that secondary schools should address the physical and emotional changes caused by FGM.
The hon. Member for Rotherham rightly mentioned local authority funding. She is right to say that the Department for Education made more than £1.6 million available to run the National FGM Centre for three years. As she acknowledged, the centre hopes to become self-sustaining from April 2020. The University of Bedfordshire is evaluating the centre, and that evaluation is due to be completed by July this year. The Secretary of State for International Development mentioned to me that DFID and the NHS are looking at co-funding specialist expertise, to help deliver services such as those at Queen Charlotte’s Hospital, and she is happy to speak to the hon. Lady about that.
This is a small change, but it will add to the measures that the Government have brought forward to tackle FGM. No one who has spoken in this debate, and neither my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park nor the Government, has suggested that the Bill will end FGM. We cannot be complacent about the threats to women and girls. The Government will continue to work to prevent FGM here and abroad, to support the victims of FGM and to pursue those who cause or allow this terrible practice to continue. I am happy to make the commitment that my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park asked me to: we will continue to ensure that victims are protected. My hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset and the hon. Member for Tooting referred to their children. We need to continue to protect the children of others across the world.
I would like to end by thanking those who have taken part in the debate. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park, who has not only steered the Bill through the House so ably but, as we heard in his speech, has done so much to campaign so well with individual campaigners and cross-party to help solve FGM issues here and across the world. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North, who rightly pointed out that we need to thank both men and women who have taken part in this debate. This is not just a female issue solved by females; it needs a co-ordinated approach, cross-party and cross-gender. I congratulate Lord Berkeley on identifying the issue that a small change in the law could solve and on introducing the Bill in the other place. I thank the Members who sat on the Bill Committee, and I thank my Bill team yet again for the tremendous job they have done. It has been reassuring and heartening to see such solid cross-party support and clear commitment to the Bill. I commend it to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed, without amendment.
Royal Assent
Friday 15th March 2019
(5 years, 8 months ago)
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