Asked by: Lord Berkeley of Knighton (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress they are making in securing convictions for female genital mutilation.
Answered by Lord Bates
At the Girl Summit hosted by the Prime Minister in July 2014, the government set out a clear commitment to end female genital mutilation (FGM) and announced a comprehensive package of domestic measures to achieve this.
This involved a range of measures to improve the law enforcement response and thereby help to secure convictions for FGM. A number of amendments have been tabled to the Serious Crime Bill to strengthen the law, new police guidance on FGM is being published, and a review by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary into so called ‘honour-based’ violence with a focus on FGM will commence in 2015. In addition, 42 forces have signed joint protocols with the Crown Prosecution Service on the investigation and prosecution of FGM. The government published a consultation on 5 December on how to introduce a mandatory reporting duty to increase referrals to the police in order to support more prosecutions.