NHS hospitals will have duty to report FGM, government announces

Jane Ellison, the public well being minister, mentioned the move would help guarantee girls and women who had undergone FGM could be cared for. Photograph: Lucy Young/Rex

All NHS acute hospitals are to be obliged to give information on individuals who have undergone female genital mutilation, the government has explained.

Thursday’s announcement, produced to mark the UN’s day of zero tolerance to FGM, comes the day after the Guardian launched a significant campaign in partnership with the 17-year-previous Bristol pupil Fahma Mohamed and Modify.org to finish the practice.

The objective of the new obligation on hospitals is to supply much more info on the prevalence of FGM than ever ahead of, the government said. From September, all hospitals will be required to record if a patient has had FGM, if there is a family members history of the practice or if deinfibulation, which is an FGM-connected method, has been carried out on a female. The data will have to be reported to the Department of Overall health each and every month.

The public wellness minister, Jane Ellison, stated: “Female genital mutilation is an abhorrent practice that has no area in this – or any other – society.

“In purchase to fight it and ensure we can care appropriately for the women and ladies who have undergone mutilation we need to create a far more exact nationwide image of the challenge. This is the initial phase towards undertaking that.”

The government also announced that charities are getting invited to bid for up to £10,000 to carry out neighborhood engagement work aimed at raising awareness of FGM. This follows a productive House Workplace bid for funding from the European commission, enabling it to launch the £100,000 initiative.

The crime prevention minister, Norman Baker, is to chair a cross-government ministerial roundtable on Thursday to discuss operate to finish FGM. He mentioned: “I am determined we do all we can to deliver perpetrators to justice. The law in this country applies to completely every person and political or cultural sensitivities have to not get in the way of avoiding, uncovering and prosecuting those who instigate and carry out FGM.”

A consortium of anti-FGM campaigners set up by the government will assistance efforts by politicians and grassroots activists in Africa to finish the practice. The global advancement minister Lynne Featherstone stated: “We will not see an finish to FGM in the Uk unless of course the practice is eradicated around the world.”

The Guardian campaign is calling on the education secretary, Michael Gove, to send urgent advice to schools on tackling FGM ahead of possibly thousands of women are taken abroad in the summer holidays to be “minimize”.

NHS hospitals will have duty to report FGM, government announces