L

Lord Dobbs (Con)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 16 July 2025

Debate

Female Genital Mutilation

Contribution

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that information and his very encouraging response. Female genital mutilation means cutting off a young girl’s clitoris. It usually happens in a back room off some back street. It is being inflicted on thousands of children every year and yet, in 50 years, as the noble and learned Lord suggested, there have been only three convictions. Like the Post Office, bad-blood and grooming-gangs scandals, people will, rightly, in a few years’ time, demand, “Why was nothing done when we had the opportunity?” So, I am very glad to hear what the Minister says. It is not the Minister’s fault; clearly, it is not—we all bear a degree of shame for this past record. Will he encourage the setting up of a task force, to report very quickly, whose objective will be to increase the number of prosecutions and convictions? Without successful prosecutions and convictions, we will still be failing thousands of innocent children.

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