Official unit says issue is hidden crime and figures may not reflect full scale of abuse Nearly 1,200 possible forced marriage cases were flagged up to a specialist service last year, figures show. Of the 1,196 reports handled by the government’s Forced Marriage Unit (FMU), more than a quarter involved victims below the age of […]

Doctors, nurses and teachers are still nervous of being branded racist if they speak to families about female genital mutilation, a leading researcher said. Professor Hazel Barrett, an expert in FGM, has developed an app to give professionals the confidence to flag up their concerns if they think a girl is at risk of being cut. […]

The custom is cloaked in the lie of attaining womanhood when in reality, it takes it away It is a barbaric practice that has no roots in religion and can cause unimaginable suffering and even death in its victims. Yet female genital mutilation, or FGM, is still widely practised throughout this region and in Africa […]

In today’s world, the girl child is the most vulnerable, and female genital mutilation (FGM) is one of the cruellest practices and forms of discrimination against girls and women. There are 200-million women in the world that have been victims of FGM, of which 92-million are in Africa. Each year three million girls are at […]

A father has been found not guilty of organising for his nine-year-old daughter to undergo female genital mutilation (FGM) to punish her. The 50-year-old man, of south London, had been accused of twice arranging for someone to cut the girl with a razor as she lay on a mat in the hallway. He was also […]

A woman has revealed how she begged her father to stop the ‘terrible thing’ as he used a razer blade to cut her private parts. The teenager, who cannot be identified, claims she was just ten years old when her private parts were sliced with a razor blade as a punishment on two separate occasions. […]

Telford & Wrekin Council has called on home secretary Amber Rudd to commission a public inquiry into cases of child sexual exploitation (CSE), specifically in Telford. A number of reviews of CSE have already taken place in the borough but the council now believes only an independent inquiry commissioned by the government is now appropriate. […]

The woman who cut me was my mother’s friend. She just thought it was the normal thing to do. I’ve since asked her why she did it, and her excuse was that when I was born they could tell from my eyes that I was strong-headed and they wanted to tame me, to protect me from […]

International Women’s Day is an incredibly important date, which should act as a reminder that we must live its values on every other day of the year. This year, more than ever, men have a responsibility to take part in the conversation, and have a responsibility to do what they can to further women’s rights. […]