Lynne Featherstone has urged anyone who suspects a girl may be at risk of being forced to endure Female Genital Mutilation to go to the Police with their concerns. She said that she wants to see cases prosecuted to send a powerful message.
She appealed for help to protect girls as what she called “the cutting season” approaches. The procedure often happens during the Summer holidays when the girls are away from school for several weeks.
She said that prosecution and other work to change behaviour were the way forward:
It would be great to have a prosecution and send out the message that this is violence against women, it’s child abuse and it’s unacceptable.
‘But the bigger issue has to come from behaviour change, because you are not going to put 20,000 sets of parents in prison in this country.
Prosecution would be a good message but this is very deeply embedded. I don’t think we should underestimate that what’s been going on for over 2,000 years can just be turned around.
Lynne has stated that the aim of the government is to wipe out FGM in a generation and has pledged £35 million to help charities spread this message at home and abroad.
You can read the whole interview with Lynne here.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
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4 Comments
Using the shorthand acronym FGM makes the horrible practice of female genital mutilation sound quite innocuous, so could I suggest that we stop using that jargon.
Actually, Peter, you might have a point there. I’ll bear that in mind in future.
however you describe it, – genital mutilation, genetic modification, genital modification-, all forms of GM should be outlawed.
The Government and Europe should act immediately to stamp out this barbaric treatment of girls and women. Those communities practicing it should be targeted with information and warnings. After that mutilators should be sought out, prosecuted, imprisoned and, if possible deported. No ifs or buts. This act has no place in the modern world.