Female Genital Mutilation
Lord Meston Excerpts(1 day, 21 hours ago)
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Lord Hermer (Lab)
I agree entirely with the spirit of what the noble Lord has said. He will appreciate that I cannot, from this Dispatch Box on an ad hoc basis, determine what goes into the curriculum, but I am convinced that this problem is one that needs to be addressed from the classroom to the courtroom.
Lord Meston (CB)
My Lords, the low rate of criminal conviction is the result of evidential problems presented by young victims and of family and cultural pressures, but FGM remains a dangerous and illegal practice. In many cases, prevention and protection must be seen as more effective than prosecution. Does the Minister agree that the more reliable measures of prevalence are the important FGM protection orders made by the family courts—albeit only 930 have been made in the last 10 years and 21 in the first quarter of this year—coupled with the excellent data now collated by the NHS? We are now just at the time of year before the long school holiday, when girls are most at risk of being taken abroad and subjected to FGM. Will the Government remind professionals of that and of the particular need for vigilance?