Female Genital Mutilation (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. That is why our work to end this practice is an integral part of the cross-Government Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Strategy, which is backed by increased funding of £100M.<\/p>
We have significantly strengthened the law, including introducing a new offence of failing to protect a girl from FGM, lifelong anonymity for victims, and a mandatory reporting duty requiring specified professionals to report known cases in under 18s to the police. We have also introduced FGM Protection Orders to protect women and girls at the earliest opportunity. These are already being used to good effect - since their introduction in July 2015, over 100 orders have been made.<\/p>
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Raising awareness amongst frontline professionals is essential. That is why in April 2016 we published multi-agency guidance on FGM, which is statutory for the first time, and have developed free e-learning which has been completed by over 100,000 individuals to date. The Home Office\u2019s FGM Unit is carrying out awareness raising outreach across the UK. These tools are helping increase awareness, encourage good practice, and support training.<\/p>
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Significant work is under way to improve the response from health and social care professionals. The Department of Health, in partnership with the NHS, is leading a £4m national FGM Prevention Programme, and as part of the Department for Education\u2019s £200m Children\u2019s Social Care Innovation Programme a range of projects have been funded. DfE have also invested £375,000 to raise awareness amongst school staff and pupils.<\/p>"} , "answeringMember" : {"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/members/4311", "label" : {"_value" : "Biography information for Baroness Williams of Trafford"} } , "answeringMemberPrinted" : {"_value" : "Baroness Williams of Trafford"} , "dateOfAnswer" : {"_value" : "2017-07-17", "_datatype" : "dateTime"} , "isMinisterialCorrection" : {"_value" : "false", "_datatype" : "boolean"} , "questionFirstAnswered" : [{"_value" : "2017-07-17T11:25:11.753Z", "_datatype" : "dateTime"} ]} , "answeringDeptId" : {"_value" : "1"} , "answeringDeptShortName" : {"_value" : "Home Office"} , "answeringDeptSortName" : {"_value" : "Home Office"} , "date" : {"_value" : "2017-07-04", "_datatype" : "dateTime"} , "houseId" : {"_value" : "2"} , "legislature" : [{"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/terms/25277", "prefLabel" : {"_value" : "House of Lords"} } ], "questionText" : "Her Majesty's Government what is their action plan to tackle female genital mutilation; and what assessment they have made of the success of that plan to date.", "registeredInterest" : {"_value" : "false", "_datatype" : "boolean"} , "tablingMember" : {"_about" : "http://data.parliament.uk/members/2037", "label" : {"_value" : "Biography information for Lord Lester of Herne Hill"} } , "tablingMemberPrinted" : [{"_value" : "Lord Lester of Herne Hill"} ], "uin" : "HL445"} ], "itemsPerPage" : 10, "page" : 0, "startIndex" : 1, "totalResults" : 1, "type" : ["http://purl.org/linked-data/api/vocab#ListEndpoint", "http://purl.org/linked-data/api/vocab#Page"]} }