Female Genital Mutilation

Baroness Tonge Excerpts

Wednesday 4th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Tonge (LD)]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords, particularly of course the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, for introducing the debate and for giving us so many statistics and graphic details, which noble Lords will be glad to hear I do not intend to repeat. FGM is a terrible practice and a very ancient one, as is male circumcision. No one really knows why these things started—perhaps we shall never know—but we know that FGM is still prevalent in the world today, and for women it is the most horrible and dangerous practice.

I want to say what in my experience has gone on in Parliament. I came into Parliament in 1997 with a lot of women parliamentarians, and I quickly joined the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Population Development and Reproductive Health. Of course there was the 1985 Act that prohibited FGM—everyone knows about that—but by the year 2000 that all-party group had produced a report on female genital mutilation, which is still up on the group’s website. Following that report, Christine McCafferty MP, the chair of the group at the time, took a 10-minute rule Bill through Parliament to prevent FGM from being perpetrated on girls taken out of the country. It was illegal within the country but we wanted to ensure that girls could not be taken out in the school holidays. This was followed by Ann Clwyd—supported in the House of Commons, I may say, by me—introducing an amendment to the 1985 Act, and in 2003 Royal Assent was given to making FGM illegal if girls were taken out of the country to have it done.

Nevertheless, it has taken 10 years to get the broader media and parliamentarians interested and, as we have heard, no prosecutions of individuals have taken place in that time, the main reason being that although, for example, 63 cases were reported between November 2009 and November 2011, no individual would give evidence. Girls stay loyal to their families. The noble Baroness, Lady Rendell, has to be congratulated; throughout this time she has campaigned on this issue and constantly drawn attention to this dreadful abuse.

Some 18 months ago, my all-party group suggested that we had a meeting with the Director of Public Prosecutions—Keir Starmer, at the time—to discuss why no prosecutions were taking place. He organised a round-table meeting; Jane Ellison, the chair of the all-party group on FGM, came to it, as did many social workers, doctors, teachers and NGOs. He got together a huge collegiate group of people who were concerned about this practice. After several meetings, there is now a countrywide alert for teachers, doctors, social workers and so on to report any suspicions that they may have.

I understand too that the Home Affairs Select Committee is to investigate the matter, but I contend that we have had enough reports, investigations and round-table meetings. What we need is a prosecution, and Keir Starmer assured us a few months ago that there was one in the pipeline. That is what we need. We do not want the victim to be harmed, but we need a prosecution that is well publicised in order to alert everyone in the country to this awful practice.