The British Government has been slammed in a report issued by Parliament’s International Development Committee, criticising its perceived inability to tackle the issue of female genital mutilation.
Written by Chris White
The report claimed that one of the major factors in the government’s inability to tackle female genital mutilation or ‘FGM’ in the UK, was that British police and social workers were “too afraid” to do anything effective to stop it for fear of being labelled as “racist”.
The report was especially concerned by the fact that whereas the British Government has allocated £35 million to end the practice abroad as part of its G8 pledge to substantially fund international projects aimed at ending violence against women, practically nothing had been done by government to curb the practice in the United Kingdom, with no one being prosecuted for a single genital mutilation case for more than 4 years.
The Committee’s report went on to describe how the British Government had been “weakened” by Political Correctness, citing an approximate number of 20,000 girls aged between 4 and 13 who were in danger of FGM which the report concluded as being “unforgivable” on the part of the government.
The report concluded: “The UK’s credibility in calling to end the practice overseas is undermined by the failure to tackle the problem at home. Robust action should be taken to counter political correctness and address culturally sensitive practices such as female genital mutilation within the UK.”
MPs on all sides of The House have responded by suggesting that the UK should adopt what the government called a “cross-agency” approach to the crisis of female circumcision in the UK, whereby police would “liaison” with various “community” organization and “proactively track girls at risk of female genital mutilation and step in to prevent parents having the procedure performed on their daughters”.
However, the Committee described it as “appalling” that no girls had thus far been placed on the child protection register despite 148 referrals of female genital mutilation over the past 4 years.
The Committee’s Chairman Sir Malcolm Bruce added that for the government to “meet its goal to eradicate this brutal practice within a generation, the UK Government must also act on this issue in the UK”.
In response to the report a Home Office spokesman said: “There is no justification for female genital mutilation. It is child abuse and it is illegal. We are absolutely clear that political or cultural sensitivities must not get in the way of preventing and uncovering this terrible form of criminal activity. The law in this country applies to absolutely everyone.”
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