Campaigners have launched a petition demanding the Home Office takes responsibility for ending female genital mutilation in the UK.
Leyla Hussein, a victim of the cultural practice and co-founder of the anti-FGM charity Daughters of Eve, said urgent action is needed because thousands of girls from the UK are still being cut despite years of campaigning.
Her fight to stamp out FGM is being filmed for a Channel 4 documentary. She said: “This is a child protection issue, it is about violence and child abuse. I am demanding somebody has to be responsible for this.”
Many girls are at risk now as the “cutting season” approaches, when they can be flown abroad in the school holiday for the procedure. But FGM, though illegal in the UK since 1985, is also carried out here. The girls are from families who moved to the UK from countries where it is widespread, including Somalia, Sudan, Senegal and Egypt.
No single UK government department has responsibility for ending FGM. Instead, work is shared between the Home Office, departments of health and education, the Ministry of Justice and the Crown Prosecution Service.
Ms Hussein, 32, was cut in Somalia aged seven. As well as the physical damage, she suffered psychologically, she said, and the experience led her to train as a psychotherapist. “In the UK we say we respect other people’s cultures which is why my parents moved here. But lines have got crossed and political correctness has gone crazy,” she said. “People tiptoe around the subject.”
A girl’s external genitals are removed by untrained “cutters”. In some cases she is sewn shut, resulting in agony during sex and potentially fatal complications in childbirth. More than 65,000 women living in Britain have fallen victim and a further 30,000 are at risk — the highest figures in Europe. Yet there have been no prosecutions in the UK.
“I am annoyed that after all these years we are stuck in a rut and nothing is happening,” said Ms Husssein. “On paper it looks great but there is nothing coming from the top. Even guidance for teachers gets blocked in email systems because of the word ‘genitals’.”
Her petition, launched together with Efua Dorkenoo of the charity Equality Now on the Government’s epetition website, calls on the Home Office urgently to launch a national action plan. Ms Dorkenoo said: “We have enough guidelines. What we need now is implementation and leadership.”