West Midlands Police have dealt with 70 cases involving female genital mutilation (FGM) in the first seven months of this year.
This is almost three times more than in the whole of the previous year.
Most featured girls thought to be at risk before actually undergoing the procedure but a shocking 632 women and girls were treated for complaints linked to FGM at West Midlands hospitals between last September and the end of March this year.
The majority sought help for repeat infections, infertility or pain as a result of the surgery conducted abroad.
Dr Olufunmilola Ajibona, Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals FGM specialist said: “It is present within a significant number of women accessing our services. Within our ante-natal clinic alone 243 new pregnant patients with FGM were seen between March 2012 and December 2014.”
Det Con Gill Squires, West Midlands Police expert on the subject, revealed: “We believe girls are being cut here. Our intelligence suggests they are brought to the area, and other major UK cities, for the procedure to take place.
“Trying to identify where and when this is happening is the real problem because information is not forthcoming from communities.
“We need to hear from people who suspect this is going on so that we can take action to protect girls who otherwise will be physically and psychologically scarred for life.”
Sarata Jabbi - now 31 and with a home in the West Midlands - was cut at the age of seven while living in Gambia and recalled: “The pain is unimaginable - the worst I have endured in my life. It was all over my body.
“You live with it for the rest of your life because of the psychological impact. It is still as clear in my mind as if it had happened yesterday.”
A Sudanese national, aged 45, living in the West Midlands, was stopped from boarding a flight at Gatwick Airport late last month amid fears he was taking his 15-year-old daughter overseas to undergo FGM and 14 families were intercepted at Birmingham International Airport on their way back from extended holidays in FGM-practising countries on September 1. Two cases have been forwarded for further investigation.
A poster campaign targeting schools and other prominent locations and aimed at breaking down barriers in communities and getting more information about vulnerable girls and cutters is being launched by police.
Anyone - professionals, community members, FGM survivors - can call the NSPCC’s FGM helpline anonymously on 0800 028 3550 or to call 101 speak to West Midlands Police’s Public Protection Unit to report inf