Breast Ironing

Karen Bradley Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd March 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Karen Bradley)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry) on securing a debate about an important issue on which he has previously been campaigning. He should be assured that the fact that the subject is on the Order Paper has really made people sit up and listen today. I had to explain to a number of colleagues what this evening’s Adjournment debate was about, and the utter horror on each and every face when they understood is testimony to the importance of the debate and the fact that my hon. Friend has secured it.

One of my hon. Friend’s final points related to men raising these matters. These are not just women’s issues. This is violence against women and girls—some of it is perpetrated by men and some by women—but we need men to speak out and make it clear that these practices are unacceptable. The excuse given for FGM, breast ironing and other so-called honour-based violence is that men require it, and that it has to happen to women so that men will accept them. That is simply not true, and men need to speak out and make it clear that that is not the case. I congratulate my hon. Friend and the other men who have spoken in the debate, as well as the women who have contributed. It is important that we all speak on this matter.

I want to make it absolutely clear that breast ironing is not just an abhorrent practice; it is illegal. It is child abuse, and no political or cultural sensitivities should ever be used as an excuse for us to stop tackling it. As my hon. Friend has noted, there are parallels between breast ironing and other harmful practices such as FGM. One such parallel is the fact that these practices are often hidden crimes, which makes it difficult for us to estimate their prevalence. We want to find the victims of these crimes and we want to stop the crimes happening, but we will be able to do that only if people and communities are brave enough to speak out and say that the practice is unacceptable. It is also the responsibility of the police proactively to look for these crimes and to devise and implement measures to increase the confidence of victims to report them and to give evidence.

[Dr Whitford]

As this practice is predominantly carried out during puberty when the girls are at school, should we not be educating them about it within the school system in the United Kingdom? Would that not encourage them to come forward?

[Karen Bradley]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. I work closely with Ministers in the Department for Education to ensure that guidance material is available to enable schools to teach people about this. I will say more about that shortly. However, I know that certain professionals might feel reticent about the subject. They might feel that cultural sensitivities are involved or that there are political reasons why they should not go there. That is simply not the case, however, and we need to give those professionals the confidence to know that this is something they should be looking for, to know what the signs are and to take action. That is what we all need to do.

[Kit Malthouse]

I completely agree with the Minister. I wonder whether her Department, or indeed the police, might look at the French experience, which has involved a significant number of prosecutions and convictions, particularly for FGM but also for other harmful cultural practices. My hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry) made the point that one of the difficulties that the police sometimes face from a cultural point of view is that the perpetrator is often a family member. So we may well be prosecuting granny and putting her in prison, but even that is no excuse, and we need to lock some of these people up, if only to send a signal.

[Karen Bradley]

Let me address the point about convictions. My hon. Friend makes the point that France and other countries have had successful prosecutions resulting in convictions, but we have to accept that there are different legal systems involved. It is also worth making the point that although FGM was first made a crime in 1985, the Crown Prosecution Service did not receive a single referral of a case that it might have been able to take to prosecution before 2010. That is why the organisations and community groups that work on this are very important, and we have to work with them at a community level. What my hon. Friend says is true: victims of FGM might have to give evidence in court against a family member.

We are sometimes asked why we cannot just go ahead and get a conviction, if we know that a crime has happened. Well, there are plenty of unsolved murders. There might be a body, and we might know that someone has been murdered, but we cannot necessarily get the evidence we need. This is about equipping the police, law enforcement agencies and other professionals with the tools that they need to gather the necessary evidence, information and intelligence. Like my hon. Friend, I want to see a conviction for this. We have had a successful conviction for forced marriage, and I want to see a conviction for FGM, but we all have to acknowledge and respect the difficulties involved in getting such a conviction.

It is important to remember that a conviction is in many ways a failure—a crime has happened. The more that we can do to prevent the crime from happening in the first place and to make it clear that the practice is illegal and therefore should not happen, the better the result will be. Where this crime does occur, we want to ensure that the law enforcement response is as robust as possible.

I want to discuss with my hon. Friend his thoughts about legislation, but let me be clear that breast ironing is against the law today. Although there are no specific offences, the police have a range of other offences at their disposal to deal with any cases that they encounter, including common assault, actual bodily harm or grievous bodily harm, child cruelty and causing or allowing a child to suffer serious physical harm. The Crown Prosecution Service takes seriously the effective prosecution of all forms of honour-based violence. In 2014-15, 225 defendants were prosecuted in cases flagged as having an honour-based violence component, a rise from 206 in the previous year, with 129 convictions—the highest ever recorded. However, it is true that we want more convictions. This debate can send a message to law enforcement and the CPS that we want the offence to get more attention.

In December, Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary published its review of the police response to honour-based violence. The review found some areas of good practice, but also raised serious concerns about the police’s handling of such issues. I stress again that honour-based violence is a crime. The so-called honour-based context—there is no honour in any of these crimes—does not prevent it from being a crime. HMIC’s report showed that the police were not bringing to bear some offences, such as domestic abuse or child abuse. We are working closely with HMIC, considering the report’s findings, and working with police forces, the national policing lead and the College of Policing to ensure that we get the right guidance. That means further work and training to help to increase the understanding of crimes such as breast ironing.

On mandatory reporting, my hon. Friend talked about the measures that we introduced in the Serious Crime Act 2015 regarding FGM, which we know are working. I had an email from my county council in Staffordshire only today saying that an FGM protection order had been put on a baby. It is absolutely fantastic that the orders are being used in practice and preventing this dreadful crime from taking place. We placed a mandatory reporting duty on professionals who are aware of FGM cases involving girls aged under 18. We are also committed to consulting on a mandatory reporting duty for all child abuse, and that consultation will start shortly. The consultation is broad and wide ranging. We are looking at various measures, including a mandatory duty to report all forms of child abuse. We will consider all responses, and I encourage anybody who is listening to this debate to make sure that they feed into that consultation.

Before I wrap up, let me mention the work that we are doing internationally. We know that cases of breast ironing have been documented in Cameroon and other parts of Africa. In Cameroon, the British High Commission has been working closely with the Minister of Women’s Empowerment and the Family in co-ordination with local religious leaders on campaigns to raise awareness and to support a community-led change to end breast ironing.

My hon. Friend will know that last year the Prime Minister appointed my noble friend Baroness Verma as ministerial champion for tackling violence against women and girls overseas. I work closely with her to ensure that we are doing all that we can not only in this country, but in countries where we know that there is a high prevalence, or a higher prevalence, of such practice. We need to tackle harmful practice overseas. I have met some fantastic charities that work with communities and stand up and say that this practice is wrong. They also try to get villages and tribes to say that it is wrong, because if they do that, the next village will follow. Fantastic work is being done.

There is always more that we can do. I am conscious of time, so I will finish by thanking my hon. Friend for securing this debate and commending the work that is being done by many organisations, particularly CAME women and Girls Development Organisation, to bring hidden practices, such as breast ironing, to the fore.

My hon. Friend has done a great service. He has raised awareness of this practice in a way that one is able to do in this Chamber. Sometimes we underestimate the power an Adjournment debate in this place to raise awareness of an issue. Let me reiterate that what we are talking about is illegal. It is a crime and it is not acceptable. I want to assure the House that the Government fully understand that and are absolutely committed to putting a stop to it.

Question put and agreed to.