The cruellest cut of all
Although female genital mutilation is illegal in the UK, young girls are still being sent abroad to be operated on - and it must be stopped, writes Ann Clwyd MP
Every MP who gets a high slot in the Private Members Bill ballot gets inundated by requests from various interest groups to take up their cause. I decided to sponsor a bill, backed by the Home Office, which will close a loophole in the 1985 Female Circumcision Act. This loophole allows parents to evade the law by sending their young daughters abroad to be operated upon. I was horrified to learn that as many as 7,000 girls in the UK are at risk of undergoing female genital mutilation.
Female genital mutilation (FGM) involves procedures which include the partial or total removal of the external female genital organs for cultural or other non-therapeutic reasons. The practice is medically unnecessary, extremely painful and carries serious health risks, both at the time when the mutilation is carried out, and in later life. Immediate consequences include severe pain, haemorrhage, shock, infection, septicaemia or even death. Longer-term consequences include difficulty in menstruating and passing urine, incontinence, recurrent urinary tract infections, pelvic infections (which can cause infertility), abscesses, painful sexual intercourse and sexual dysfunction. There are also associated difficulties in pregnancy and childbirth. Women who have been mutilated are twice as likely to die in childbirth, and three or four times as likely to have a stillborn child.
FGM is not called for in any religious scripture and is not limited to any religious group. The procedure is usually performed on girls between the ages of 4-13, but in some cases FGM is performed on new born infants or on young women prior to marriage or pregnancy. Most of the women and girls affected live in Africa, although some live in the Middle East and Asia. However those who have undergone, or are at risk of undergoing, FGM are increasingly found in Western Europe and other developed countries - primarily among immigrant and refugee communities. The extent of FGM in the UK is not known but it is estimated that there are 74,000 first generation African immigrant women in the UK who have undergone FGM, and as many as 7,000 girls (under 16) within the practising communities who are at risk of undergoing it.
Support for eradication of FGM is international and being pursued at all levels by organisations such as the World Health Organisation. Although the practice is widely perceived as a form of child abuse, members of those communities which practice it genuinely believe that it is in their child's best interest and do not intend it as an act of abuse.
FGM is illegal in the UK under the Prohibition of Female Circumcision Act 1985. Section 1(1) of the 1985 act makes it an offence "to excise, infibulate or otherwise mutilate the whole or any part of the labia majora or labia minora or clitoris of another person". It is not an offence to carry out the acts mentioned in section 1(1) on oneself, but section 1(2) makes it an offence to aid, abet, counsel or procure the performance by a person of such acts on herself. An offence under section 1 is punishable with up to fives years imprisonment, an unlimited fine or both. Section 2 of the act provides a saving for necessary surgical operations and operations carried out in connection with childbirth but only if the operation is carried out by a registered medical practitioner or registered midwife or a person training to be one.
The fact that people can (and evidence suggests do) circumvent the 1985 act by taking young girls abroad to carry out FGM has been seen for some time as a loophole in the law. Closing this loophole is a move which has been supported by activists for years and was a recommendation of an All Party Parliamentary Group on Population, Development and Reproductive Health reporting in 2000.
The Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) Bill, introduced by me on 11 December, will - if it becomes law - repeal and re-enact the 1985 act and give extra-territorial effect to its provisions. Repealing and re-enacting the existing provisions allows the short title of the bill (which would otherwise have to be consistent with that of the 1985 act) to describe more accurately the prohibited acts and remove any suggestion of acceptability that the word "circumcision" might imply. (Substituting the term "genital mutilation" for "circumcision" in the legislation was another recommendation of the All-Party Group.) But the main effect of the bill is to create extra-territorial offences so that it will be an offence in certain circumstances to carry out FGM abroad, and to aid, abet, counsel or procure the carrying out of FGM abroad - even in countries where the practice is legal. Legislation alone will not eradicate the practice but strengthening the law in this way will send a strong message about human rights and hopefully have a deterrent effect.
