Female Genital Mutilation

Baroness Verma Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, I join all noble Lords in paying tribute to the dedication of the noble Baroness, Lady Rendell, to this cause and her widely respected work towards the elimination of female genital mutilation. The noble Baroness illustrated so vividly the horrors of this practice and I hope that I will have time to respond to the noble Baroness and other noble Lords’ questions. If time does not permit, I will write to noble Lords.

This debate is absolutely crucial for women and girls across the world. Female genital mutilation is a form of child abuse which this Government are committed to eradicating. Similarly, the UN Committee on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women has clearly denounced the practice of FGM in its general recommendation No. 14 on female circumcision. The UN General Assembly’s resolution of January 2002 on traditional or customary practices affecting the health of women and girls called upon all states to ratify or accede to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and to adopt national measures to prohibit harmful traditional practices such as FGM.

We have to protect girls from this abuse and ensure that all those living with the consequences of FGM are given the care and support they deserve and so badly need. Front-line professionals who have responsibilities to safeguard children and protect adults from the abuses associated with FGM play a vital role in identifying children and young women who are at risk or who have been subjected to FGM. It is unlikely that any single agency will be able to meet the multiple needs of someone affected by FGM and therefore it demands a multiagency response.

Similarly, the coalition Government have recognised the need for a joined-up approach to tackle FGM and this method has been successful in drawing together, co-ordinating and driving work from a number of government departments. We are trying to raise awareness of this barbaric practice and have made progress. However, our key focus is prevention and we have undertaken considerable work in the past year across and between nine government departments to advance efforts to prevent and tackle FGM in the UK and around the world. In February, the Government launched multiagency practice guidelines on female genital mutilation for front-line professionals such as teachers, GPs and nurses. The guidelines aim to raise awareness of FGM, highlight the risks of the practice and set out clearly the steps that should be taken to safeguard children and women from this abuse. This is a key step towards ensuring that professionals are able and confident to intervene to protect girls at risk.

We know that FGM causes significant harm to the physical and mental health of girls in many ways, which many noble Lords have raised today, and increases the risk of life threatening complications during childbirth for both the mother and baby. There are 15 specialist clinics in the NHS which treat women and girls who have been subjected to FGM. These clinics all have trained and culturally sensitive staff who offer a range of healthcare services for women and girls, including the commonly called “reversal” surgery. A clinic based in the Guy’s and St. Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust in London sees more than 300 clients per year and carries out between two and three reversals of FGM per week. It may surprise noble Lords—although I suspect it does not from listening to the contributions—that 30 to 40 per cent of those clients are British nationals.

The Royal College of Midwives has identified FGM as a key issue to its members and is conducting a survey of midwives to understand more about the numbers of women being seen by health services and the training needs of health staff. The results will be used by the Royal College of Midwives to input into national strategies and plans, and to provide better support to midwives by way of providing information and appropriate educational resources. We applaud this and other such initiatives.

Communications about FGM are key to bringing the issue to people’s attention. More than 40,000 leaflets and posters have been circulated to schools, health services, charities and community groups around the country. This is not the only method we are using to raise awareness and we know that it is not an end in itself but a foundation on which to build. Guidance has also been issued to British embassies and high commissions to protect British girls and women at risk of FGM overseas. We must be clear that the long-term and systematic eradication of FGM in the UK will require practising communities to abandon the practice themselves.

Through the regular government-chaired female genital mutilation forum, we will work with the well established network of FGM civil society organisations to co-ordinate activities and input into government policy-making as well as to examine how we can support and facilitate their engagement with practising communities in the UK. We have reached out to work with a range of charities and civil society partners active in this area. Their wealth of experience has been absolutely crucial in shaping our work and we thank them for their input and for sharing their expertise with us. It has been an excellent example of partnership working that we are keen to continue going forward.

Looking forward, we will continue to examine how FGM can best be included in existing statutory training for professionals, and to offer other areas of specific, tailored training to the relevant agencies, both of which are key to the prevention and tackling of female genital mutilation. There have also been some successful initiatives from the police. The Metropolitan Police’s Project Azure work at Heathrow, which speaks to families potentially taking the girls overseas for FGM, has strengthened our last line of defence for these girls.

The noble Baroness, Lady Rendell, referred to the interesting work being done with the Metropolitan Police at the Lilian Baylis Technology School in Vauxhall, which was approached to take part in a female genital mutilation film project. In further illustrating the project, it was decided to hand the film production over to a group of young people to decide how this sensitive subject should be presented to their peers. The school’s well-being group was thought to be the ideal place for the project. The group included girls from Eritrea and Somalia, two of whom had already been “cut” and who shared their experiences and knowledge with group members. One pupil revealed that her father had refused to allow her to be cut despite her mother being keen for her to have FGM. The film should be ready for delivery to schools in September. I think that it will be a very powerful tool in a crucially important area, for we know that the education and safeguarding sectors play a vital role in identifying and intervening when girls are suspected of being at risk of FGM. I think that the idea of directly involving children, including those who have already sadly experienced the horror of FGM, is a brave and innovative idea.

We need to tackle this issue at its root. By reaching out to children directly, we can hope to change the mindset of our future generations to ensure that when these girls become mothers they will abandon the practice for good. While FGM needs to be addressed in a comprehensive manner by all parts of society, change must come from the communities which carry out this practice, and we commend and applaud communities which have taken a strong stance on this issue. Internationally, we recognise that FGM is a serious problem and the Government’s aid programme is committed to empowering women and girls, including preventing violence against women and girls, including FGM where appropriate.

The Government will support sensitive measures to counter all forms of gender-based violence internationally and will support measures to eliminate FGM indirectly through their core funding of the key UN agencies that address FGM—namely, the United Nations Population Fund, the United Nations Children's Fund and the World Health Organisation—as well as supporting NGOs which focus on tackling FGM. Closer to home, we will also work with other EU member states and EU institutions to examine how and where the EU can add value to global efforts to tackle FGM.

The Government are frustrated by the lack of prosecutions in the 25 years that female genital mutilation has been illegal in the UK but the success of the legislation cannot be measured only by the number of prosecutions. We hear anecdotally that the legislation has been a deterrent, stopping families from proceeding with their plans to have FGM performed on their daughters.

Legislation alone cannot eliminate the practice altogether. Families and communities need to take ownership of the issue and must help to stop committing this terrible crime. Prosecution after the fact, although desirable, does not relieve the victim of a lifetime of pain and discomfort. We want to prevent FGM from happening in the first place. Despite the lack of prosecutions, the Act is intended to deter this unacceptable practice and anecdotal evidence suggests that it has had some deterrent effect. The Act has also provided an impetus for outreach work with the practising communities and has been widely used to raise awareness among the police, judiciary, health professionals, social services departments and education sector so that FGM is treated with the seriousness that it deserves.

Research suggests that the most likely barrier to prosecution is the pressure from the family or wider community that leads to cases going unreported. Victims may be too young and vulnerable or too afraid to report offences to the police or to give evidence in court. Family and community pressure can make it very difficult for girls to come forward to notify the police about what has happened to them. We recognise that more needs to be done.

The Crown Prosecution Service will shortly issue new guidelines for prosecutors on FGM to ensure that the CPS is able to prosecute cases of female genital mutilation that satisfy the evidential and public interest tests within the Code for Crown Prosecutors. Together with police training, we hope that every case of FGM can be investigated and, if it meets the relevant evidential and public interest tests, prosecuted to ensure that perpetrators are brought to justice. We hope that the publication of these guidelines will be the first step towards a successful prosecution in the UK really to press home the point that we will not tolerate the unacceptable abuse of girls and women in this way.

I can see from the clock that I will run out of time. I made a heap of notes and I now undertake to write to noble Lords. I conclude by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Rendell, for initiating this debate. I hope that it is noted and goes some way to ensuring that this important issue remains on the agenda in order that girls and women are protected and this unacceptable form of abuse is eliminated for good. As always, this subject highlights the expertise and the passion for which this House is known and respected across the globe.