Female genital mutilation (FGM) may be one of the most prevalent forms of child abuse in the UK, a committee of British MPs says.
It says the failure to tackle the growing practice is a "national scandal" that has resulted in the preventable abuse of thousands of girls.
In a hard-hitting report, the Commons Home Affairs Committee said FGM may be one of the most prevalent forms of "severe physical child abuse" taking place in Britain, with an estimated 65,000 girls under the age of 13 at risk.
While the practice has been outlawed in Britain since 1985, the first prosecution only took place this year.
In its report, the committee blamed a "misplaced concern for cultural sensitivities over the rights of the child" for the failure of authorities to deal with a practice largely associated with communities from parts of Africa.
It called for prosecutions to show that the issue was being taken seriously in the UK and the implementation of a "comprehensive and fully-resourced" national action plan for dealing with it.
The Government should introduce "FGM protection orders" similar to those that exist for forced marriage, it said, and if necessary ministers should change the law to make it a criminal offence to fail to report child abuse.
The committee also highlighted the need for better services for women and girls affected by FGM, including refuge shelters for those at risk.
"FGM is a severe form of gender-based violence and, where it is carried out on a girl, it is an extreme form of child abuse," it said.
"The failure to respond adequately to the growing prevalence of FGM in the UK over recent years has likely resulted in the preventable mutilation of thousands of girls to whom the state owed a duty of care.
"This is a national scandal for which successive governments, politicians, the police, health, education and social care sectors all share responsibility."
There are an estimated 170,000 women and girls in the UK who have undergone FGM, the report said, while in two London boroughs almost one in 10 girls are born to mothers who have suffered the procedure and are therefore themselves at risk.
FGM is most commonly carried out on girls between the ages of five and eight and while in some countries it may be done by a health professional, it is often performed by traditional practitioners with no formal training, without anaesthetics, using knives, scissors or even pieces of glass.
The immediate effects can include severe pain, bleeding, shock, infection and occasionally death. In the long term, many women and girls experience mental health problems, such as depression and post-traumatic stress.
While police in the UK have investigated more than 200 cases over the last five years, the committee says there is still very little information on the girls most at risk.
Share
