Female Genital Mutilation

Baroness Prosser Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2014 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Prosser]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that government departments work together to identify girls at risk of female genital mutilation and provide them with the necessary support.

[Baroness Jolly (LD)]

My Lords, on 6 February, to mark International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation, Ministers signed a declaration to demonstrate the Government’s commitment to tackling this practice. On 8 March, we will be publishing the updated ending violence against women and girls action plan. This will have a renewed focus on FGM and will set out clearly the cross-government approach we are adopting.

[Baroness Prosser (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for that reply and of course I welcome the recent intervention by the Secretary of State for Education, which will enable all schools to play their part in dealing with this terrible and dreadful crime. Can the noble Baroness elaborate a little for the House on the role of other government departments? For example, will the Department of Health, the UK Border Agency, local government in the form of social services and so on be included? Which department will take the lead? Will this co-ordinated approach be at ministerial level? Finally, how is this work going to be developed within relevant local communities?

[Baroness Jolly]

The noble Baroness asks a lot of questions. Although the ending violence against women and girls action plan is led by the Home Office—I was at a planning meeting a couple of weeks ago and the people sitting around the table were all very senior members from each department, as well as from this House—all government departments play a key role in tackling FGM. For example, as of next month it will be mandatory for NHS acute hospitals to provide monthly information on patients who have undergone FGM, and that has to be supplied to the Department of Health. The Government have also launched a £100,000 FGM community engagement initiative to support community work to raise awareness of FGM. We acknowledge that working with relevant communities is vital, as is systemic eradication of FGM in the UK, which will require practising communities to abandon the practice. There are some really good examples of work being done in Bristol. The West Midlands Police does really useful work and of course the Met here in London is seen as a leader on this issue.