Britain’s chief prosecutor called on Friday for greater efforts to bring people to trial for the “abhorrent” crime of female genital mutilation (FGM).
Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer said it was unrealistic to expect victims to report on their parents so one option might be to mount undercover operations to catch the people who make the arrangements for FGM.
The government says up to 24,000 girls in Britain could be at risk of FGM, a cultural tradition which is widespread in parts of Africa and the Middle East, but which often causes serious physical and psychological problems.
Although Britain criminalised FGM nearly 30 years ago, there has not been a single trial.
Starmer said he believed the police had referred only three cases to the Crown Prosecution Service in that time, none of which could proceed to trial.
FGM is found in several British immigrant communities including Somalis, Eritreans, Sudanese and Egyptians. Its most extreme form involves removing all external genitalia and sewing up the vaginal opening.
Community workers and activists trying to tackle FGM say a few trials would act as a powerful deterrent.
But a major problem in bringing prosecutions is that the victims may be too young, too vulnerable or too afraid to report it to the authorities. They may be reluctant to testify against their parents or they may retract evidence under family or social pressure.
Police also face silence from the community and difficulties in gathering evidence in cases of FGM reported many years after the event or cases carried out abroad.
Starmer told a meeting on Friday with police, lawyers, politicians, campaigners and health workers that everyone needed to think “much more imaginatively” if they were to overcome the numerous hurdles.
PROSECUTIONS HELP PREVENTION
The brain-storming session threw up several alternative ways to bring an FGM-related trial without having to rely on a complaint from a child.
- Undercover operations could target those that organise for FGM to be carried out - for example the person who arranges the travel in cases where FGM takes place abroad
- There may be a way to use other legislation to prosecute a parent or guardian for failing to prevent harm happening to a child
- It might be possible to bring prosecutions for breaching a preventative order for a child deemed to be at risk where for example an order has been made not to remove that child from a certain jurisdiction
Starmer said the CPS also planned to liaise with prosecutors in other countries which have brought or tried to bring cases.
“I think (a prosecution) would send a very powerful message to everyone that this is a criminal offence,” Starmer told TrustLaw following the discussion.
“It is a criminal offence that is capable of being prosecuted and will be prosecuted. I think, and hope, that that would have a preventative effect.”
MP Jane Ellison, chairwoman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on FGM, said if white girls were being routinely mutilated there would be an outcry.
She pointed to a recent edition of the BBC’s Newsnight programme where girls from FGM-practising communities had called for protection. “They were saying … We are British and we want British laws to protect us,” Ellison said.
Efua Dorkenoo, head of the FGM campaign at rights group Equality Now, said most girls are under 10 when they are subjected to FGM, but there is evidence that it is increasingly being carried out before the age of five. Some victims are just days old, she added.
FGM was first criminalised in 1985, but the law did not prevent girls being taken abroad to be cut. That loophole was closed in 2003 when the law was replaced with the Female Genital Mutilation Act which also makes it a crime for anyone to arrange for a British citizen to have FGM in another country.
Dorkenoo pointed out that within a decade girls born in Britain after 2003 will be giving birth themselves. If any of them are found to have had FGM then it will be clear that a crime has been committed and it should be reported to the police.
Baroness Jenny Tonge suggested there should be a publicity campaign now to make clear to parents that the authorities will be able to pursue them in the future if their daughter is found to have FGM when she herself gives birth.
“It’s illegal, it’s child abuse … and it’s immensely damaging and harmful,” she added.