Mick Hartley

From the Times [£] today:

Midwives are being flown from Africa to carry out illegal cutting ceremonies in female genital mutilation “parties” across the UK, a charity has said.

The Black Health Initiative, a charity in Leeds, said it had to step in and break up one party recently and prevent another from taking place in West Yorkshire where girls as young as eight have been subjected to the procedure.

The procedure, common in countries in the Horn of Africa, involves the partial or total removal of the female external genitalia, and is widely considered a form of control over women by certain cultures. It is classed as an extreme form of discrimination against women and a violation of human rights by the World Health Organisation.

A report by the Commons home affairs select committee published in September said it is “beyond belief” that there has not been a single successful prosecution 30 years after FGM was made illegal in the UK.

“In the absence of successful prosecutions, FGM remains a national scandal that is continuing to result in the preventable mutilation of thousands of girls,” the report added.

Heather Nelson, chief executive of the Black Health Initiative, said in an interview with the BBC this morning: “We know of parties happening here in England, and in West Yorkshire we recently had to break one up, and we’ve stopped another from taking place.

“What we’re finding now is that where once girls were taken abroad to be cut, specialist midwives are now flown over and several girls are cut at the same time, which then leads to a celebration.”

Last year 137,000 women were subjected to FGM in England and Wales, according to a study by the City University of London.

There were 5,700 newly recorded cases in England and Wales between April last year and March this year, including 43 cases involving women and girls born in the UK, according to official figures released in July.

But, despite the fact that it's been illegal here since 1985, there's not yet been one prosecution. Or rather, yes, just the one – a farcical case where a doctor was prosecuted for sewing up a woman who'd previously been subjected to FGM, to stop the bleeding after she gave birth. The jury took less than 30 minutes to throw it out.

Update: but see comments below about that misleading 137,000 figure.