By Aneeta Prem
More than 230 million girls and women alive today have undergone female genital mutilation (FGM), according to the latest global estimates from UNICEF and the World Health Organization. FGM is not rare and it is not distant. It is a form of child abuse that crosses borders, religions and languages. It is a form of dishonour abuse, where shame is pushed onto a child instead of onto those who harm her.
To understand it properly, we have to start closer to home. FGM is not a problem somewhere else. It happens here, in the United Kingdom. Girls born and raised in the UK are still being taken abroad to be cut. Some are cut here. Others grow up carrying pain that nobody around them knew how to name. This is what female genital mutilation in the UK looks like in real lives, not just in statistics.
In my work through Freedom Charity, and in the years spent teaching with my PSHE Association accredited safeguarding novel Cut Flowers for schools, which comes with PSHE Association accredited lesson plans, I have been trusted with stories from women who live in this country. The book is used in UK schools and is now part of the national curriculum. Freedom Charity has donated copies widely to schools and libraries. These memories do not belong to another continent or another culture. They belong in our classrooms, our hospitals, our safeguarding files, and in the decisions professionals make about what they choose to see.
One of those women is someone I will call Sara. That is not her real name. Her story is shared with permission and with care. She remembers her fifth birthday as music, colour and excitement. She believed she was being prepared for something special. She did not understand what was happening until the moment it hurt. What has stayed with her is not the detail, but the shock, the pain without explanation, and the silence that followed, the slow realisation that the adults she trusted to protect her had not.
For many girls, this is how FGM begins. It sits in the space between trust and betrayal, celebration and harm, childhood and a secret that is never spoken. Understanding that reality is where serious work begins.
FGM means cutting, injuring or removing external female genitalia for non-medical reasons. There is no health benefit. There is no medical justification. The World Health Organization describes it as a violation of the human rights of girls and women and notes that it is usually carried out on children between infancy and the age of 15.
The World Health Organization groups FGM into four broad types. Type 1 (often called clitoridectomy) involves the partial or total removal of the clitoral glans. Type 2 (excision) involves removal of the clitoral glans and the labia minora, with or without cutting the labia majora. Type 3 (infibulation) involves narrowing the vaginal opening by creating a covering seal, sometimes with stitched closure. Type 4 covers all other harmful procedures to the female genitalia for non-medical reasons, such as pricking, piercing, scraping or cauterisation. For girls and women, these categories do not make any form mild or acceptable. All forms are abuse.
FGM can cause severe bleeding, infection, problems passing urine, difficulties with menstruation, complications in childbirth, long term pain, sexual difficulties and psychological trauma that can last a lifetime.
It is important to say something else clearly. FGM is not required by any major religion. Global health and human rights bodies, and many religious leaders, have repeatedly stated that there is no religious obligation to cut girls. Where FGM continues, it is driven by shame and control, by social pressure, myths around marriageability, fear of exclusion and the belief that a girl’s body must be controlled to protect family reputation. It sits within a wider pattern of dishonour abuse, where a family’s image is treated as more important than a child’s safety.
When people call it tradition, they often mean enforcement.
When people call it culture, they often mean silencing.
When people call it honour, they often mean power.
To end FGM, we have to understand why families still choose it. Not to excuse the choice, but to see the pressures and beliefs that make it feel inevitable to some.
Survivors and community workers describe:
In safeguarding work in the UK, I often hear a sentence that stays with me:
I did not want it. I did not know how not to do it.
Abuse is being carried out against children, but within systems of expectation and control where refusing can mean losing family, community or safety. The law is clear. The reality is complicated. Both are true at the same time.
This is where language matters. The term dishonour abuse is not a slogan. It is a tool. It reminds us that the harm is not about family pride. It is about control, fear and the willingness of adults to sacrifice a child’s body to protect their own standing. Calling it dishonour abuse puts the shame back where it belongs, on the act, not on the girl.
FGM is illegal in the United Kingdom. The Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 and the Serious Crime Act 2015 make it an offence to perform FGM or to assist a girl to carry it out on herself, and to arrange, help or encourage FGM overseas for a UK national or permanent resident. Consent is irrelevant. A child cannot consent to abuse.
There is a mandatory reporting duty for regulated professionals, including teachers, social workers and healthcare workers. If a girl under 18 discloses FGM, or if a professional has visual evidence, they must report it to the police. Failure to do so can lead to disciplinary action.
The NHS collects and publishes data on women and girls who have received medical care following FGM, through the Female Genital Mutilation Enhanced Dataset. These are not prevalence figures. They are contact figures. They represent people seen. They do not represent everyone harmed.
Recent NHS England figures show that attendances related to FGM are recorded each year in England, across a wide age range, with FGM often carried out in childhood in another country. Parliamentary committees have also heard evidence that training for healthcare professionals remains uneven and that survivors struggle to access reconstructive or trauma informed care.
A typical safeguarding example:
In one school Freedom Charity worked with, a pupil disclosed that she was being taken abroad in the summer holidays for “a celebration”. Staff recognised the risks and followed procedures. The trip was stopped. The girl stayed. It is in these moments that law becomes protection.
There remains inconsistency in UK enforcement. This article is not here to shame professionals. It is here to make clear what is at stake.
FGM is documented in parts of Africa, Asia, the Middle East and diaspora communities worldwide. UNICEF and UN partners estimate that more than 230 million girls and women have been cut, with the highest numbers in African and Asian countries, and smaller practising communities in the Middle East, Europe, North America and elsewhere. A global review from the End FGM European Network and Equality Now has collated evidence of FGM in 94 countries, including countries where governments have not formally acknowledged it.
Some countries have outlawed FGM and are prosecuting cases. Others have laws on paper but no enforcement. Some have no prohibition. Some are in active legal reform.
International bodies now describe FGM as a violation of human rights and a harmful practice that intersects with forced marriage, reproductive rights and modern slavery. Where governments have acted with political will, prevalence has fallen in younger age groups. Where governments have hesitated, reform has stalled.
What we must resist is the idea that FGM is elsewhere. If it is happening in the UK, it is ours to confront.
In West Africa, the regional ECOWAS Court of Justice ruled in 2025 that Sierra Leone had violated the rights of women and girls by failing to criminalise FGM. The court found that states have an obligation under human rights treaties to prohibit and sanction FGM.
In The Gambia, FGM was banned in 2015. Enforcement was weak for years, but recent prosecutions, including the charging of three women in connection with the death of a one month old baby girl who died after FGM, reignited national debate about whether to repeal the ban. UN experts and human rights organisations have urged the country not to decriminalise FGM.
Countries such as Kenya and Senegal have seen declines in prevalence after reforms that combined law with community outreach and education. Elsewhere, prevalence remains high in certain regions.
Legal change is not enough. Enforcement matters. Training matters. Public trust matters. A statute does not end FGM. It gives professionals a framework. What they do with it is what counts.
Survivors describe consequences across a lifetime: infection, chronic pain, problems passing urine, difficulties with menstruation, complications in childbirth, sexual health problems, trauma and fear of medical settings.
One woman told me during research for Cut Flowers:
It took me longer to understand the silence than the pain.
Another said:
I was punished for something I did not do. Everyone pretended I had done something shameful.
There is no one way to speak about FGM. But there is one constant. The harm was not their fault.
Language can protect. Language can betray. The phrase dishonour abuse rejects the idea that violence in the name of family reputation carries dignity. It does not. It carries fear. It is about power, not culture.
Dishonour abuse includes forced marriage, so called honour crimes, coercion and FGM. The term reframes responses. It changes police reports. It sharpens safeguarding assessments. It shifts blame from child to perpetrator.
A social worker once told me:
When I started using the word dishonour, my cases became clearer.
If you are unsure, contact Freedom Charity. You are not alone in this work.
FGM continues. FGM can be stopped.
Change happens in conversations between survivors. In schools using Cut Flowers. In hospitals with trauma informed practice. In courts where judges call FGM what it is. In police reports recorded accurately. In staff rooms where a teacher trusts their instinct. In a girl hearing the word FGM for the first time and realising she is not alone.
Change happens when silence breaks.
UNICEF global estimates and profiles on FGM (2024).
WHO FGM fact sheet and 2025 systematic review on complications.
NHS England Female Genital Mutilation Enhanced Dataset and annual reports.
Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 and Serious Crime Act 2015 (UK).
CPS prosecution guidance on FGM.
UK Government FGM resource pack.
End FGM European Network and Equality Now: FGM documented in 94 countries.
ECOWAS Court of Justice judgment on Sierra Leone and state responsibility.
UN reporting on The Gambia and calls not to decriminalise FGM.
UK parliamentary committee reports on mandatory training and survivor access to care.
Aneeta Prem MBE JP is a UK safeguarding specialist and the founder of Freedom Charity. She campaigned for forced marriage to become a criminal offence in the United Kingdom and introduced the term dishonour abuse to reposition so called honour crimes as child abuse. Her PSHE Association accredited safeguarding novel Cut Flowers for schools, with PSHE Association accredited lesson plans, is used in UK schools and is now part of the national curriculum. Freedom Charity has donated copies widely. She speaks regularly on FGM, forced marriage and child protection.
If you are worried that a child is at risk of FGM, or if you are a survivor seeking guidance, you can contact Freedom Charity for support and safeguarding advice.
The Gambia’s Supreme Court is hearing a case that could weaken the ban on FGM. This clear explainer shows why it matters for child protection worldwide.
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Capacity, Consent and Dishonour Abuse: Why “no capacity means no consent” is the safeguard the world is still failing to apply
Female genital mutilation in the UK: what we don’t say out loud. Female genital mutilation is not “a problem elsewhere”. It is child abuse happening in the UK and worldwide, and girls need us to name it.
Balochistan Child Marriages Restraint Act 2025 Provincial law: minimum marriage age 18. Cognisable, non-bailable, non-compoundable offences. Forced marriage is child abuse. The shame lies with the perpetrator, not the child.