Avon and Somerset Police have this week become the latest force in the country to aid the prevention and ending of female genital mutilation (FGM) by seizing the passports of three girls who were travelling abroad from Bristol as soon-to-be victims of the practice. Bristol police confiscated the documents and applied for female genital mutilation […]

Birmingham Central Mosque heard details of a teenager’s horrific forced marriage last year it has emerged – days after trustees denied dealing with any such cases. The 18-year-old had been ordered to marry her 30-year-old cousin in Pakistan after being repeatedly being beaten by her parents and was warned she would die unless she agreed. But […]

A children’s charity chief executive says the full scale of female genital mutilation in England is only now becoming clear after new figures revealed that a case was reported every 96 minutes last year. The 5,484 instances of mutilation reported from October 2014 to September 2015 are described as just the “tip of the iceberg”, […]

David Cameron’s equality “tsar” has blamed liberal “hand-wringing” and political correctness for preventing abuse in the name of multi-culturalism. Louise Casey suggested abuses such as forced marriage were being allowed to continue because some officials are more interested in PC language. Ms Casey, who is leading a Government review of opportunities and segregation among ethnic […]

The Republic of Ireland is set to introduce a new law which criminalises forced marriage. New legislation proposed by the Department of Justice would make “intentional conduct of luring an adult or a child . . . with the purpose of forcing [them] to enter into a marriage” an indictable offense. There is currently no […]

Police and social workers stepped in to stop a nine-year-old girl from being sent to Afghanistan to marry an 18-year-old cousin, a judge heard. The girl’s mother had told social services staff that her father was planning the trip, Mr Justice MacDonald heard. Another judge had made both parents the subject of forced marriage protection orders after […]

I was shocked when I heard that London accounted for over half the number of female genital mutilation (FGM) cases recorded nationwide. Data released in December showed 758 new incidents were reported in our capital between July and September alone, with 1,385 flagged across the rest of the country. FGM is a practice that would […]

Ireland will introduce a specific offence of forced marriage as part of the Government’s new strategy for domestic, sexual and gender-based violence, it has been announced. The issue of forced marriage is not currently dealt with directly by Irish law but the proposed offence category, which may become active by the end of next year, […]

Prosecutors have ruled out charges over the alleged female genital mutilation of a baby from London after deciding that a police file on the case contains insufficient evidence to put before a court. The case, which is the latest failed attempt to secure a first ever conviction in this country for carrying out FGM, involved […]