On behalf of the Scottish Government, I am pleased to open this debate on the important issue of working in partnership to end the practice of female genital mutilation.
The Scottish Government considers female genital mutilation to be an unacceptable practice and, of course, it is illegal. It is a form of child abuse and violence against women and a violation of the human rights of women and girls. It is a specific form of violence under the guise of culture and religion, and it has no place in the Scotland that we all want to create. It is gender based and, as members know, often closely linked to other forms of violence against women and girls, such as forced marriage, which became a criminal offence at the end of September last year. It reflects deep-rooted inequality between the sexes and constitutes an extreme form of discrimination against women. It is nearly always carried out on minors.
The World Health Organization estimates that between 120 million and 140 million women from 29 countries worldwide have been affected by FGM and that, every year, another 3 million girls become at risk of the procedure, which partially or wholly removes or injures their genitalia for non-medical reasons.
What about Scotland? The Scottish Refugee Council’s report, “Tackling Female Genital Mutilation in Scotland: A Scottish model of intervention”, which was launched last December and funded by the Scottish Government to the tune of more than £20,000, goes some considerable way to achieving an understanding of the scale of the issue in Scotland and to identifying how, by working collaboratively, we can prevent and, I hope, eradicate it. The report has adopted a well-rounded approach to the gathering of data to identify populations that are potentially affected by female genital mutilation in Scotland, with figures indicating that, between 2001 and 2012, just under 3,000 girls were born in Scotland to mothers from countries that practice FGM.
The debate is timely, as it comes the day before the international day of zero tolerance for female genital mutilation—a day when the world will take a stand against child torture, the heinous physical abuse of women and a practice that has no place in society but, unfortunately, still affects far too many women across the globe today.
Last week, I was able to hear at first hand about the important work of London-based FGM organisations such as Equality Now in tackling FGM throughout the United Kingdom. Indeed, I am delighted to show Scotland’s commitment to tackling FGM by announcing that the Women’s Support Project will tomorrow launch Scottish Government-funded awareness-raising materials. My colleague the Minister for Housing and Welfare will attend the launch.
In our discussions, the Scottish Government and Equality Now agreed to share good practice across the UK because we are doing some things in the field that it is not doing but would now like to consider and vice versa.
The Scottish Government has provided almost £50,000 funding to the Women’s Support Project to develop a range of materials. They include, first, a Scottish DVD that outlines the law, child protection and prevention work in communities, and services for women and girls who have experienced FGM; secondly, information leaflets for practitioners that highlight key points, good practice, resources and services, and a standardised training package and risk-assessment tool; and, thirdly, an FGM statement that sets out the law in relation to FGM in Scotland, which individuals can show to family friends and/or relatives when travelling abroad to remind them that FGM is a serious offence in Scotland and the UK and that there are severe penalties for practising it.
Raising awareness and promoting understanding are vital in addressing the complex issues of FGM, and I welcome the launch and the focus that it brings on this important issue.
The debate provides the opportunity to highlight the excellent work that is being done across Scotland with our partners and to set out to members our proposals for tackling FGM in the coming year within the communities that are potentially affected by the practice.
I pay tribute to the wide range of third sector organisations that continue to campaign against FGM and to provide specialist support services. Those organisations include DARF—Dignity Alert and Research Forum—which I visited this morning and which is doing excellent work with minimal resources; Roshni; the Scottish Refugee Council; Saheliya; and, of course, the Women’s Support Project. Their campaigning over many years has helped to raise awareness of, and influence and shape our understanding of, the practice of FGM.
I want to take a moment to reflect on what has been accomplished over the past year. Between 2012 and 2015, £34.5 million has been allocated to tackling violence against women, including FGM, and in the past year the Scottish Government has allocated more than £140,000 directly to work to tackle FGM. That compares very favourably with the £370,000 that the UK Government has committed to a community engagement initiative and community projects across England to help end FGM and honour-based violence, including forced marriage.
Working with partners and education authority staff, colleagues in Education Scotland have produced a learning resource that authorities and headteachers can use to raise awareness of FGM in schools and early years settings. Last May, we published updated national guidance for child protection, which is used by all children’s services in Scotland. It provides advice on how to respond if there are concerns that a child may have been subjected to, or may be at risk from, FGM. Police colleagues have produced “Honour Based Violence (HBV), Forced Marriage and Female Genital Mutilation Standard Operating Procedures” to provide all officers with the necessary understanding and skills to deal appropriately and consistently with HBV incidents.
It is equally important that we work with communities in all areas of intervention. A point that was driven home to me when I visited DARF this morning is that we should not tackle the issue by treating it as purely a criminal justice issue but work with communities and give them the facilities and the support to be able to change attitudes and culture from within. That is preferable to assistance being handed down from people in authority such as us.
I turn to our next steps. Following on from the Scottish Refugee Council’s report, we will be exploring how we can take forward interventions under the five Ps: policy, prevention, protection, provision and participation. By having a baseline of Scotland-specific data, we can ensure that what we are doing in Scotland to tackle FGM is right for our communities here.
Our work in relation to those interventions will be facilitated by the multi-agency FGM short-life working group, on which the Scottish Refugee Council, among other key stakeholders from the statutory and third sectors, is represented. The group, which will report later this year, will make recommendations on the best way forward to prevent and eradicate FGM, which will be aligned with the Scottish Government’s policy of preventing and eradicating violence against women and girls as set out in “Equally Safe”, which was published in June last year. It will ensure that what we do nationally is informed by expert opinion in relation to the overarching themes of the SRC report.
If we are to banish FGM to history, we need to understand why practising communities sustain traditions that are so unacceptable, so how we discuss FGM is important. The practice must not be tolerated but, equally, we must be conscious of how we engage with minority communities on such sensitive issues. Standing up to FGM in Scotland is about much more than what is on the statute book. We have to build capacity to engage with communities that could be affected and to raise awareness among those who work with, but who may not belong to, those communities.
We need to work with organisations such as DARF to support engagement with affected communities to educate people about the realities of FGM and the law in Scotland, and to tackle the pressures that many women in practising communities face. I was delighted to meet DARF this morning. Those pressures often come from the most immediate family members, which makes it much more difficult to resist them.
In raising awareness, we are supporting what the motion calls the girl summit in July this year. I think that the invitations for the summit have gone out just today from Glasgow City Council and UNICEF. The summit will be held on 9 March 2015 in Glasgow, and the theme will be ending violence against women. Both Lord McConnell, the former First Minister, and Nicola Sturgeon, the current First Minister, will speak at the summit, along with the Lord Provost, and the will give their support to the campaign and these policies. Child and early forced marriage and FGM will be addressed by that event in March.
The Government will vote for Ken Macintosh’s amendment. I think that it is important that we try to speak with one voice on the issue in the Parliament. In doing so—and in recognising that the amendment says that we are disappointed that there have been so few prosecutions—I inform the chamber that, since 1 April 2013, when Police Scotland became operational, there have been 23 referrals or child welfare concerns made to the police by partner agencies about FGM, which have initiated an interagency referral discussion for 25 girls. In all 23 cases, the referrals related to concerns that the girls were at risk of having FGM performed on them. Those concerns have been fully investigated and no criminality has been found. Cutting had not taken place in any of the referred cases, and all referrals have now been fully investigated. In supporting the amendment, I do not want to give the impression that we are being critical of the police. The work that Police Scotland is doing in the area is very helpful and almost revolutionary in the context of what happened before and what happens in other jurisdictions.
All that I have outlined is intended to strengthen our response to FGM and to complement measures that are already in place. Those measures include working closely with police, health professionals, social work and education to share good practice and promote awareness of the prevention of FGM; continuing our support to voluntary organisations that provide support to victims of FGM; and, most important, engaging with people from potentially affected communities. Without that genuine and effective commitment to the participation of affected communities in work on the issue, we would fail to understand the true levels of potential risk faced by women and girls in Scotland today. If we do not work with the communities, we will run the risk of further marginalising the community voices that are the most effective advocates for change.
The desire, drive and determination to rid our society of this intolerable act of violence against women and girls has united and still unites the Parliament. Together with the stakeholders, we are making a difference. Only by working together will we be able to achieve our goal of eradicating the scourge of FGM in our communities.
I move,
That the Parliament notes that 6 February 2015 is International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation (FGM); condemns female genital mutilation as an unacceptable and illegal practice, a form of child abuse, violence against women and a violation of the human rights of women and girls; supports the Scottish Government’s commitment to tackling and eradicating this intolerable behaviour from Scottish society through working together with partners across the public and third sectors; welcomes the launch by the Women’s Support Project of the FGM training and public education resources on 6 February 2015; further welcomes the publication of the Scottish Refugee Council’s report on FGM in Scotland, Tackling Female Genital Mutilation in Scotland: A Scottish Model of Intervention, in December 2014; acknowledges the positive developments made through partnership across Police Scotland, NHS Scotland, education, social services, voluntary and third sector organisations with the establishment of the Female Genital Mutilation Short-Life Working Group; commends the valuable contribution that voluntary and third sector organisations, such as Dignity Alert Research Forum, the Women’s Support Project and Scottish Refugee Council, make to the shaping of Scotland’s approach to FGM; notes the Scottish Government’s commitment to fund a programme of work to tackle FGM in Scotland and protect those women and girls at risk of harm from this human rights abuse, and supports Lord McConnell’s proposed Girl Summit to be held in Glasgow on 9 March 2015 to mark International Women’s Day on 8 March 2015.
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