Referrals for female genital mutilation must rise, say MPs

Doctors and other health practitioners are failing girls at risk of female genital mutilation (FGM) and the UK government should make the failure of professionals to report concerns a criminal offence unless reports rise substantially, a committee of MPs has said.1

In a hard hitting report that denounces the practice as an “extreme form of child abuse,” the House of Commons home affairs committee called the UK’s failure to tackle FGM a “national scandal” and urged the adoption of a national action plan.

The report described the record of referrals of cases to social services by healthcare professionals as “extremely poor” and said many cannot …