Patrols are being stepped up at London airports amid fears children are being taken on ‘holiday’ for female genital mutilation (FGM).

Police say they will target flights to-and-from countries where the prevalence of cutting young girls is high, such as Guinea, Somalia and Sudan.

FGM is the altering or causing injury to the female genital organs for non medical reasons, including removal of the clitoris or labia.

Experts say it is impossible to know how many girls are being taken abroad for FGM because it is normally arranged by their families, and like other forms of child abuse, is relatively easy to hide.

But Equality Now, a charity that campaigns to eradicate FGM, says there is anecdotal evidence holiday cutting is taking place.

It says girls are more at risk during the summer holidays because it allows them more time to ‘heal’ before returning to school

http://www.euronews.com/2017/07/20/police-fear-young-girls-are-being-taken-on-holiday-for-fgm

‘FGM is a crime it is child abuse and will not be accepted in this country,’ the Prime Minister says.

A woman facing deportation to Nigeria has won a reprieve after Theresa May was told her three-year-old daughter faced female genital mutilation if they were returned.

A decision to refuse Lola Ilesanmi’s application to remain in the UK has been withdrawn and Ms May has ordered immigration minister Brandon Lewis to personally oversee a review of her case.

Ms Ilesanmi’s MP Hannah Bardell, of the Scottish National Party, appealed for Ms May to intervene at Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons earlier this month, telling her that the former RBS employee had been beaten, forced to have an abortion and had her face “smashed with an iPad” by her estranged husband because of her refusal to subject their daughter to FGM.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/lola-ilesanmi-theresa-may-female-genital-mutilation-a7842366.html

A £30m Government grant will allow the National FGM Centre to continue its work to stop female genital mutilation (FGM).

Newly appointed children and families minister Robert Goodwill has announced funding for 24 projects as part of the Children’s Social Care Innovation Programme.

In his first address to the children’s social care sector since becoming minister, to the Association of Directors of Children’s Services annual conference in Manchester, Mr Goodwill confirmed that a portion of the grant would go to Barnardo’s, which runs the National FGM Centre alongside the Local Government Association, to maintain and expand the role of the centre.

The National FGM Centre was established in 2015 with the aim of ending FGM in England within 15 years. It works with girls and their families to raise awareness in schools and communities, and trains professionals including social workers and teachers in identifying girls at risk of FGM and reporting it to the police.

News of the grant comes as figures published by NHS Digital have recorded more than 5,000 previously unreported cases of FGM from April 2016 to March 2017 – with 39 per cent of cases where the age of the child was known in children under five.

http://www.nurseryworld.co.uk/nursery-world/news/1161709/government-funding-to-expand-work-of-fgm-centre

The NHS handled 85 new cases of female genital mutilation (FGM) in Hackney and the City of London last year, according to figures released this week.

NHS Digital’s annual FGM report, which groups the two boroughs together, also shows the total number of FGM-related attendances across the UK dropped to 9,179 last year – just 0.5 per cent less than the 9,223 in 2015.

Ninety-five per cent of the women who were asked said they underwent FGM before the age of 18.

Commenting on the figures, a spokesperson for children’s charity NSPCC said: “Once more, these figures highlight that FGM continues to affect hundreds of girls and women living in communities across England.

“FGM is child abuse. Despite being illegal for over 30 years, too many people are still being subjected to it and it is right that health services have started to properly record evidence of this horrendous practice.”

The government introduced mandatory reporting of FGM cases in October 2015.

Female genital mutilation has been illegal in the UK for more than three decades, and the Government has pledged to wipe it out worldwide “in a generation”. But Channel 4 News has been speaking to one woman, a bank worker living in Scotland, who claims that if she and her children are deported to Nigeria, her husband may force their daughter to be cut. Theresa May was challenged about her case in the House of Commons today. Just to warn you, there are graphic details in this report.

https://www.channel4.com/news/mother-fears-daughter-could-face-fgm-in-nigeria

ALMOST 3,000 GIRLS living in Ireland could be at risk of undergoing female genital mutilation.

FGM refers to the ritual cutting or removal of some or all of the external female genitalia. The practice is most common in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, and carried out for cultural or religious reasons.

Unicef data states that at least 200 million girls and women in 30 countries worldwide have undergone the extremely painful procedure.

Three women’s rights leaders were in Ireland this week to discuss how they are trying to stop FGM – also referred to as cutting – in their region.

An ActionAid study carried out in 2016 found that 2,639 girls living in Ireland may currently be at risk of undergoing the practice. Thousands more have undergone FGM before moving to Ireland.

Authorities charged a Michigan mother Wednesday for helping to commit female genital mutilation on girls as young as seven.

Tahera Shafiq, a 48-year-old wife and mother, now faces charges for aiding and abetting the practice and conspiring to commit genital mutilation in a growing case against three other Michigan doctors, reports CNN.

Federal prosecutors allege that Shafiq entered Burhani Medical Clinic, where Dr. Jumana Nagarwala allegedly performed the crime and left after the procedure was completed. One of the girl victims claimed Shafiq was also there at the time of her procedure, a complaint said.

“Female genital mutilation constitutes a particularly brutal form of violence against women and girls. It is also a serious federal felony in the United States. The practice has no place in modern society and those who perform FGM on minors will be held accountable under federal law,” acting United States Attorney Daniel Lemisch said.

http://dailycaller.com/2017/06/15/detroit-mother-accused-of-aiding-female-genital-mutilation/