page_title: Female genital mutilation in the United Kingdom
section_title: Overview
hierarchical_section_title: Female genital mutilation in the United Kingdom / 2000s–2010s / Overview
context_page_description: Female genital mutilation in the United Kingdom is the ritual removal of some or all of the external female genitalia of women and girls living in the UK. According to Equality Now and City University London, an estimated 103,000 women and girls aged 15–49 were thought to be living with female genital mutilation in England and Wales as of 2011.
  FGM was outlawed in the UK by the Prohibition of Female Circumcision Act 1985, which made it an offence to perform FGM on children or adults. The Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 and the Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation Act 2005 made it an offence to arrange FGM outside the country for British citizens or permanent residents, whether or not it is lawful in the country to which the girl is taken.
  The first prosecutions for FGM took place in 2015 against a doctor for performing FGM and another man for aiding and abetting; both were found not guilty. The first successful conviction was secured in February 2019.
context_section_description: In 2007 the FGM National Clinical Group was created to train health professionals in how to deal with the practice. Concern about FGM in the UK increased significantly in the mid-2010s. In November 2013 a coalition of Royal Colleges, trade unions and Equality Now produced a report, "Tackling FGM in the UK."
  Britain's first specialist clinic for child victims of FGM opened in London in 2014. Since April that year all NHS hospitals have recorded whether a patient has undergone FGM or has a family history of it, and all acute hospitals are obliged to report this data to the Department of Health on a monthly basis. According to the first official figures published on the numbers of FGM cases seen by hospitals in England, over 1,700 women and girls who have undergone FGM were treated by the NHS between April and October 2014.
  A 17-year-old student from Bristol, Fahma Mohamed, created with support from The Guardian an online petition on 6 February 2014 with Change.org, on the International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation. The petition asked Michael Gove, then education secretary, to write to primary and secondary schools, encouraging them to be alert to FGM. The petition was one of the fastest growing UK petitions on Change.org, with 230,000 supporters. Gove met Mohamed and members of the youth group Integrate Bristol, who have played a key role in raising awareness of FGM. He sent a letter to all headteachers in England informing them of new guidelines on children's safety, including guidance on FGM. This marked the first time the guidelines included mention of FGM.
  The city with the highest prevalence of FGM in 2015 was London, at a rate of 28.2 per 1000 women aged 15-49, by far the highest. The borough with the highest rate was Southwark, at 57.5 per 1000 women, while mainly rural areas of the UK had prevalence rate below 1 per 1000.
  In 2015 police acquired the UK’s first FGM protection order. This was acquired under a new law, the Serious Crime Act 2015, which allows such protection orders. It also allows the combating of FGM by judges remanding people in custody, ordering mandatory medical checks, and instructing girls believed to be at risk of FGM to live at a certain address so authorities can see whether they have been mutilated.
  On 12 September 2016 Nottingham became the first City of Zero Tolerance towards FGM.
  In the April 2016 - March 2017 period the NHS attended 9 179 cases. Only 26% of the victims reported the country in which the crime took place, but of those who did 1 229 cases took place in Africa and 57 were perpetrated in the UK. No prosecutions were brought.
caption: Prevalence among the 15–49 age group in the 29 countries in which FGM is thought to be most prevalent (UNICEF, November 2014)[24]