| answer text |
<p>FGM is a crime and it is child abuse. We will not tolerate a practice that can
cause extreme and lifelong physical and psychological suffering to women and girls.
On 31 October 2015 the Government introduced an FGM mandatory reporting duty requiring
professionals to report all ‘known’ cases of FGM in under 18s to the police.</p><p>
</p><p>Reports under the mandatory reporting duty are made to the police, rather than
to the Home Office. Previously, we did not collect data on the number of FGM cases
recorded under the duty. However, to improve understanding of the prevalence of ‘honour-based’
abuse, including FGM, the Government amended the police Annual Data Requirement to
require police forces, from April 2019, to record where a crime has been committed
in the context of preserving the ‘honour’ of a family or community. The collection
includes, but is not limited to, crimes of FGM. This new collection is also capturing
offences of FGM which are reported to the police under the mandatory reporting duty.
Subject to data quality checks, we expect the first dataset under this new mandatory
ADR collection to be published by autumn 2020.</p><p> </p><p>The Home Office keeps
the legislation relating to FGM under review, including through discussion with statutory
partners and other stakeholders.</p>
|
|
