Female Genital Mutilation

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Thursday 29th January 2015 Westminster Hall

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

It is, as ever, a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Weir

I welcomed very much the Home Affairs Committee’s decision to hold an inquiry on FGM and the publication of this report. I will reserve my comments on the Government’s response until I can, I hope, intervene on the Minister, although I did think that there were some areas in which that could have been stronger and more enthusiastic about the Committee’s recommendations, especially with regard to personal, social, health and economic education.

As hon. Members know, the witnesses to the inquiry included Integrate Bristol, and much of the leadership on this issue has come from young women in Bristol, including Fahma Mohammed, who was chosen to spearhead the campaign by The Guardian against FGM, as well as the e-petition, which gained more than 234,000 signatures. That petition alone did a huge amount to raise awareness of FGM. When I first became aware of it and started talking about it, after I became an MP in 2005, awareness was very limited, but FGM is now very much on the radar. People understand what the issue is, even if they do not know all the details. I pay tribute to the work of young women in helping to raise awareness.

Fahma also successfully persuaded the previous Secretary of State for Education to write to every school to highlight his Department’s safeguarding guidance. It is very disappointing that, as the report says, many schools—70%, I think—did not appear even to have looked at that, certainly within the first month of its being sent. I will come back to talk about the work that is done in schools.

Bristol is not included in the report’s list of places that were found to have a prevalence rate of FGM of more than 2%, although it should be noted that the data used were from between 2001 to 2004, so they are now rather out of date. There have been considerable demographic changes in Bristol, so those data may not reflect the true picture for 2015. Much of the evidence on FGM is, as the report notes, anecdotal, but whatever the true rates are, any instance of FGM being carried out is obviously completely unacceptable and something that we must continue to work to challenge.

The Select Committee describes the failure of the state—be it the Government, the police, or health, education or social services—over recent years to protect girls from FGM as a “a national scandal”. The mutilation of many of those girls—girls to whom the state owes a duty of care—could have been prevented, and the fact that we did not manage to do so, and that we continue to fail to do so, is shameful.

The community in Bristol that is most at risk is the Somali community. I was pleased to note from the report that according to the Tackling FGM initiative, support for the practice among settled members of the Somali community has waned in recent years. Very good work has been done in the community in Bristol. I have particularly highlighted the work of young women in Integrate Bristol, but whenever I meet Somali community groups, I find that men are also very committed to challenging FGM. The Committee’s recommendation 19 states that the Government should

“encourage the roll-out of best practice from groups such as Integrate Bristol.”

It has been more than two years—I think it was in November 2012—since the former Director of Public Prosecutions came to Parliament to reveal to a group of MPs his action plan for FGM. At that time, we were impressed by the points that he laid out in the action plan, as well as by the fact that he was taking a personal interest in the issue and coming to speak to us himself. The report outlines why it has proved to be so difficult, even with that action plan, to secure a prosecution, and cites as the main reason the fact that

“there have been very few investigations by the police.”

I tabled parliamentary questions several years ago in an attempt to find out where the blockage was and whether the CPS was reluctant to take cases forward. I was told that there was no lack of will on the part of the CPS, but that very few cases were being brought to its attention. As the report says, about 20 cases had been brought to the attention of the CPS. The fact that some prosecutions are moving ahead is good news but, as we have heard, the numbers are nowhere near the scale that France has managed to achieve. I have spoken to the police about this many times and they always say that they would be happy to investigate if evidence was brought to their attention. As the DPP has said, however,

“if you wait for the archetypal young girl to come through the door to tell you what has happened to her…that is not going to happen”.

The police cannot rely on self-reporting from victims; they need referrals from other sources. I welcome the work that has been done in Bristol in recent years to improve FGM awareness among health professionals and those who work in the voluntary sector.

As the report highlights, there is still a failure to perceive FGM as a safeguarding issue in the same way as other forms of child abuse, which is what it is and how it must be treated. Indeed, the report says that the record of referrals by health care practitioners and others is extremely poor. I note the Committee’s recommendation that there is no point simply publishing multi-agency practice guidelines online and that they should be put on a statutory footing. It also states that FGM should be included as

“an essential part of all child protection training”,

with which I agree.

The report highlights misplaced concerns about cultural sensitivities, which is one reason why I believe that campaigning by young women from those communities that are most affected—young women who have undergone FGM, who have been at risk, or whose family members have undergone FGM—is so important. I have watched a session at St Brendan’s sixth form college in Bristol in which young women from Integrate Bristol were explaining FGM to pupils from their age group, and hon. Members will, I hope, recall an episode of “Casualty” that featured an FGM storyline.

I endorse the report’s recommendation on compulsory PSHE, as that subject has been raised with me repeatedly by professionals who work with young people on not only FGM, but issues such as teenage pregnancy, physical or emotional abuse, relationships and drugs. When I go to schools or talk to youth groups, young people always say that they think that PSHE should be made compulsory and extended to cover more areas. That is important, so I do not understand the Government’s reluctance to move on that. As I said, the Government’s response to that recommendation is disappointing. The recommendation that Ofsted should explicitly examine a school’s approach to FGM and violence against women—that is what FGM is—is also worthy of further consideration by the Government. I would be interested to know whether Ofsted has responded and whether it believes that it could take that up. The Government say that Ofsted does not conduct inspections of specific subject areas such as PSHE, but it will take account in its overall assessment of how schools deal with issues such as violence against women. I believe that that should be nailed down, because we know how schools respond to the threat of Ofsted’s verdicts, and I hope that Ofsted will give greater priority to the issue.

The section of the report on health care professionals is important. Muna Hassan from Integrate Bristol tells of the experience of her mother, who gave birth in Sweden. The midwife raised the issue of FGM as soon as Muna’s mother found out that she was pregnant, and it was followed up as Muna progressed through nursery and beyond. That is something that we can learn from. The report notes:

“Healthcare professionals have a vital role in breaking the generational cycle of FGM.”

The Committee recommends that

“the FGM status of the mother and her intentions for the child…be made a compulsory question at the antenatal booking interview”

and that, as a matter of policy, referrals should be made to children’s social care or the local multi-agency safeguarding hub if the mother has undergone FGM or there is perceived risk to the child. The Government say in their response that such professionals are already required to inform police if there is any risk of abuse, but I would appreciate it if the Minister would elaborate on that. According to the Committee’s recommendation, the simple fact that a mother had undergone FGM would be enough to trigger a referral, but the Government do not seem to believe that that should be the case. The report also says that GPs should ask new women patients about FGM as a matter of routine and states:

“We do not accept that patient confidentiality should prevent practitioners from making a referral where a child is at risk: as with any other form of child abuse, the law allows for disclosure where it is in the best interests of the child.”

We should all be focused on the best interests of the child.

I note the Committee’s recommendation that there is a strong case for strengthening the law on FGM and the Government’s response that they are doing so. The introduction of FGM protection orders is an interesting recommendation, so perhaps we can raise that with the Justice Secretary when he answers questions in the House next Tuesday.

Finally, I note the Committee’s finding that there is

“too little provision of clinical and mental health support services for the many thousands of women and girls in the UK who have undergone FGM.”

That is important, because FGM affects a woman throughout her whole life, physically and psychologically. Although we are focused on preventing FGM, we must not forget those whom it was not possible to protect and who still need our support.