When detective chief inspector Leanne Pook began investigating allegations that a father in Bristol had allowed his six-year-old daughter to undergo female genital mutilation, she hoped the case – the second to reach court – could go on to make legal history. It has been more than three decades since FGM was made illegal in the […]

Research shows 75% incidence of female genital mutilation in Bohra Muslim community, despite government claim there is no evidence of the practice Just weeks after the Indian government declared that there was no data to support the existence of female genital mutilation in the country, a small study has shown a 75% incidence across the Bohra Muslim […]

Harrowing new figures have shown a rising number of victims of so-called ‘honour crimes’ coming forward amid campaigning efforts to raise awareness. Reports of honour based abuse have risen four-fold in West Yorkshire since 2015, police figures reveal, with reports of forced marriages trebling in this time. Leading charities, revealing they too have seen a […]

Detective Chief Inspector Leanne Pook clearly remembers when she was first seized with an absolute determination to help stop the scourge of female genital mutilation (FGM) in Britain. After dedicating much of her career to child protection in Avon and Somerset, she’d been tasked with leading work in the region not only to prevent British […]

A father cleared of allowing his six-year-old daughter to undergo female genital mutilation has said the failed prosecution put intolerable pressure on him and his family. The man described the evidence against him as unsatisfactory and claimed the police and Crown Prosecution Service had important lessons to learn. A judge at Bristol crown court halted the […]

IT will make me a woman, I remember them saying that.” More than two decades later, the woman, who does not wish to be named, recalls the trauma of undergoing female genital mutilation as a child in Nigeria, where about 20 million women and girls are estimated to have undergone the abuse. Aged just six, […]

A worldwide social media campaign against female genital mutilation (FGM) is being launched in Dublin tomorrow with the backing of the #MeToo movement. The event will be led by Ifrah Ahmed (29), who was born in Somalia and survived the barbaric practice. She is now living in Dublin and helped organise this week’s demonstration, which […]

Muslim couples should be legally required to have a civil marriage in addition to an Islamic ceremony, a government-ordered review of Sharia law has concluded. The measure would mean more women had protection under family law and would face “less discriminatory practices”, according to the independent assessment. It also called for regulation of Sharia councils, […]

A man accused of being involved in the death of his daughter in Pakistan in an alleged “honour killing” has died. Samia Shahid, a 28-year-old from Bradford in West Yorkshire, died while visiting relatives in the country in July 2016. Her father, Chaudhry Muhammad Shahid, 52, had been held as a suspected accessory and was […]