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Government’s first dedicated FGM Summit in a decade brings together government, victim-survivors and third-sector organisations to better protect women and girls from FGM.

Women and girls at risk of female genital mutilation will be better protected under a package of new measures announced yesterday (Wednesday 29 April) by the government.

The package was announced at the FGM Summit hosted by Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls Jess Phillips MP and Solicitor General Ellie Reeves KC MP.

At the summit, government ministers heard from experts, frontline professionals and victims and discussed a wide-ranging package of measures to improve the prevention, investigation and prosecution of FGM.

The Home Office will review the FGM mandatory reporting duty to ensure it is as strong and effective as possible and support professionals working with children to follow clear guidance on when and how to act.

New national practice guidelines for FGM Protection Orders will be developed to identify girls at risk of being taken abroad for FGM.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and National Police Chiefs’ Council will refresh their joint protocol on FGM to ensure investigators and prosecutors are better equipped to build strong cases from the outset.

The CPS will also develop a new training module for prosecutors to strengthen capability and expertise on FGM.

These commitments will deliver on the government’s VAWG Strategy, which set out the ambition to halve violence against women and girls within a decade.

Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls, Jess Phillips, said:

Female genital mutilation is a heinous crime that has no place in our society. We need a system that acts quickly and works together to protect women and girls.

Today’s summit is about just that. By strengthening how agencies identify risk and share information, we can better support survivors and bring more perpetrators to justice.

Ending FGM is essential to our mission of halving violence against women and girls in a decade, and we will not hesitate to deploy the full power of the state to put a stop to it.

Solicitor General Ellie Reeves KC MP said:

Female genital mutilation is violence against women and girls, and is a devastating form of abuse that causes lasting physical and psychological harm.

This government is committed to protecting victims, supporting survivors and holding perpetrators to account. This means partners working together and the measures we have announced across government today will strengthen the capabilities and expertise of frontline professions to prevent and tackle this abhorrent practice.

The government’s first dedicated FGM Summit in ten years brought together survivors, healthcare professionals, law enforcement, and specialist organisations to drive coordinated action. The government made several other commitments including:

• Home Office and NPCC will develop an FGM risk factors toolkit to help frontline professionals spot warning signs earlier and intervene before a girl is harmed.
• British Embassy staff will receive additional training delivered by the joint Home Office and Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office’s Forced Marriage Unit to better identify and support British victims of FGM abroad and help bring them home safely.

The measures build on the government’s commitment to put survivors at the heart of the response to FGM, ensuring women and girls receive the support and protection they deserve.

Additional quotes

Minister for Victims and Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls Alex Davies-Jones said:

Tackling FGM is a critical part of our mission to halve violence against women and girls in a decade. Our actions today will help ensure the justice system understands and is equipped to deal with this form of horrendous harm.

Backed by over half a billion for victim services over the next three years, we are leaving no stone unturned to protect women and girls while delivering fairer, faster justice for victims.

Sema Gornall, CEO, The Vavengers and co-organiser of the FGM summit said:

This is the first ever FGM Summit the UK government is hosting, and we are incredibly excited to partner with Home Office, FCDO and Attorney General’s Office on this important work. Every twelve minutes, a girl child or woman dies as a result of FGM; it’s a form of sexual violence, child abuse and human rights violation.

FGM is an urgent matter that must be addressed globally, and at this summit, we will discuss how our sector, government, funders and communities work together, led by female and survivor leadership.

Payzee Mahmod, Global Gender Equality Advocate, said:

As a survivor of FGM and child marriage, my focus remains on the intersectionality and framing FGM as a form of Gender-Based Violence.

One Question Campaign of The Vavengers, which asks for the data gap to be addressed in the UK, alongside critical holistic healthcare, is my main ask from this Summit and I look forward to enrolling the outcomes with the UK government alongside all the sector partners.