Children Act 1989 (Amendment) (Female Genital Mutilation) Bill [Lords]

Lord Benyon Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 11th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[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.