Female Genital Mutilation

These practices are also known as female circumcision or female genital mutilation

See for, example, Black JA Debelle GD . BMJ 17 June 1995; 310 (6994): 1590–1592

Hedley R Dorkenoo E . Child protection and female genital mutilation: advice for health, education, and social work professionals. London: Forward, 1996: 8. To date, no prosecutions have been made under the 1985 Act, although one doctor has been struck off the register by the General Medical Council for his willingness to perform such operations

United Nations World Campaign for Human Rights. ‘Harmful traditional practices affecting the health of women and children’. Fact sheet No. 23. FGM is particularly common in Somalia, Dijbouti, Ethiopia/Eritrea, Mali, Sudan and Sierra Leone.

See Hedley R Dorkenoo E . Child protection and female genital mutilation: advice for health, education, and social work professionals. London: Forward, 1996: 8

See for example United Nations World Campaign for Human Rights. Harmful traditional practices affecting the health of women and children. Fact sheet No. 23

Minority Rights Group. Female Circumcision, Excision and Infibulation (Report no. 47) London: Minority Rights Group 1985: 5

See Thomson M . Reproducing narrative: gender, reproduction and the law. Aldershot: Dartmouth, 1998

See McKay RD . Is female circumcision unlawful? Crim LR 1983: 717–722

Roe M. Deb H.C. . Vol. 77, Col. 583 (19 April 1985)

In federal legislation recently enacted in the USA, only FGM carried out on minors is prohibited. See Sheldon S Wilkinson S . Female genital mutilation and cosmetic surgery: regulating non-therapeutic body modification. Bioethics 1998: 263–284

Health visitors have a duty under the UKCC Professional Code of Conduct to participate in child protection issues

Hedley R Dorkenoo E . Child protection and female genital mutilation: advice for health, education, and social work professionals. London: Forward, 1996: 15

W v Egdell [1990] 1 All ER 835

Under s.8 of the Children Act 1989, a prohibitive steps order may be obtained. This means that certain acts of the parents become subject to court permission. This could be used where there is concern that the parents will remove a child from the UK in order to have her circumcised in another country

Dorkenoo E . Cutting the rose: female genital mutilation, the practice and its prevention. London: Minority Rights Group, 1995: 153

A recent Court of Appeal decision has upheld the principle that a competent adult patient has an absolute right to refuse medical treatment, making clear that this right pertains even when the treatment is also necessary to save the life of a viable fetus, Re MB [1997] 2 FLR 426. However, a series of court decisions dealing with applications to perform non-consensual Caesarean sections, including Re MB itself, have shown that it is very difficult for women resisting necessary medical treatment in such circmstances to establish that they are competent to make their own treatment decisions