Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Pawsey Excerpts

Wednesday 18th March 2015 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

1. What recent progress her Department has made on its policies and programmes to tackle female genital mutilation and early forced marriage.

[The Secretary of State for International Development (Justine Greening)]

Last year’s girl summit achieved unprecedented international commitments to end both practices. We are now tracking to ensure that those commitments and deliverables are delivered, and supporting national efforts in more than 25 countries. The UK is the largest donor on female genital mutilation and we are implementing major new programmes to end child and forced marriage.

[Mark Pawsey]

Violence against women is always unacceptable, but female genital mutilation is child abuse and illegal. In the UK, there is increasing awareness of this repugnant practice as a result of the work of agencies such as the Kaiza project in my constituency. What efforts are the Government making to improve international awareness of efforts to combat FGM and to bring the perpetrators to justice in courts across the world?

[Justine Greening]

I commend the work of the Kaiza project in my hon. Friend’s constituency. It does absolutely vital work locally. Internationally, we are working closely with national Governments in the affected countries to support the development and implementation of legislation and policy to end FGM. When a case reaches prosecution, it means that there has been a failure to prevent a girl from being cut, so our programme is focusing particularly on prevention.