West Midlands Police

In the second feature in our series looking at how we're helping protect vulnerable people and raising awareness of 'hidden crimes' we focus on Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).

It’s believed around 137,000 women and girls living in the UK, including 10,000 aged under 15, have been affected by Female Genital Mutilation – and charity Equality Now cites Birmingham as having one of the highest rates outside London with 16 in every 1,000 women having been cut.

The barbaric practice – which involves the partial or total removal of female genitalia – has been illegal in the UK since 1985 but to date there have been no successful prosecutions.

Detective Gill Squires (pictured) is West Midlands Police’s FGM crime expert and sits on a Home Office panel tasked with looking at ways to break down the ‘wall of silence’ that exists in some communities and urging people to speak out against offenders.

Last month she secured a notable arrest of a man suspected of arranging for his 15-year-old daughter to undergo FGM, while the force is protecting vulnerable girls through the innovative use of new FGM Protection Orders.  

Gill is driven by personal accounts like those of Sarata Jabbi (pic below) who, though now living in the West Midlands, was cut at the age of just seven in her homeland of Gambia. 

Here’s her harrowing recollection… 

“I thought I was going to a party…I was dressed in new clothes but not long after arriving I heard my sisters screaming. Then an old woman came to get me.

“I started running, but there was neither nowhere to run nor anyone to run to for help. As soon as I got in the backyard I found my two siblings lying on the floor bleeding heavily whilst the cutter covered her face with a scarf. 

“I was looking around and in all the women’s faces to see if I would see mummy’s face. One of them held me down on the floor, others tied my eyes, covered my mouth and stretched my legs apart, and then I felt a sharp cut in between my legs, I screamed for help.

“As soon as the cutter finished, women start celebrating by singing and dancing…but one of my sisters fainted due to heavy bleeding and was rushed to hospital.

“The pain of FGM is unimaginable…the worst pain I’ve endured in my life, and the pain was all over my body. Being a survivor of FGM, you live with it for the rest of your life because of the psychological impact it leaves you with. For 24 years now since I was cut, it’s as if it happened to me yesterday, because I can still remember the pain I went through.”

Female Genital Mutilation has been a specific offence since the mid-80s and legislation was bolstered this year with the Serious Crime Act which now allows for parents to be prosecuted if they fail to prevent their daughters being cut. 

Nationally, there’s only ever been one prosecution – with two defendants walking free from court having been found not guilty – while 13 cases have been rejected by the Crown Precaution Service (CPS) having deemed there was insufficient evidence against suspects.

They include a Somali doctor arrested from a Kingstanding clinic by West Midlands Police in May 2012 on suspicion of offering FGM, plus a 55-year-old man arrested from a Birmingham address accused of offering equipment for a ‘DIY cutting’.

“We’re dealing with more FGM enquiries than ever before,” said Det Con Squires. “In the first seven months of this year there have been 70 cases in which FGM was thought to be a factor, usually where a girl has been identified of being at risk rather than having actually undergone the procedure. Compare that to 2012 when we had just 25 reports in the whole year.

“We’re still trying to fully understand the prevalence of FGM in the West Midlands but as a force we’re much better now at identifying potential victims – and with teachers, healthcare professionals and social workers more switched on to the signs we are seeing an increase in reporting.

“A taskforce was set up this summer including police, councils, schools, and community groups to improve information sharing and we’re developing procedures so that, when a child is born to a woman who’s undergone FGM, steps are in place to stress to the family the practice is illegal.

“It is still seen as a taboo subject…but FGM is not a matter to be culturally sensitive or permissive about. It’s an inhumane, harmful and illegal practice and we continue to urge parents not to put their daughters through the pain and physical and emotional scarring. And if they do they are liable to be prosecuted.”

Last month (16 August) West Midlands Police arrested a Birmingham man at Gatwick Airport on suspicion of arranging for his 15-year-old daughter to undergo FGM in Sudan; the 45-year-old Sudanese national has been bailed with strict conditions and will return for more police questioning next month.   

And the force is also leading the way in the use of new FGM Protection Orders to safeguard women and girls feared to be at risk.

On 17 July – the day the orders were launched – officers supported Birmingham City Council child services to enforce an FGMPO to seize the passport of a 14-year-old girl thought to be in danger of being flown to Somalia by her mother for the procedure. 

West Midlands Police also secured FGMPOs to protect the daughters of the man arrested at Gatwick Airport – stopping them being flown out of the country – and restricts his contact with the girls’ mother to prevent her being coerced or threatened into agreeing FGM.

Various conditions can be attached to the orders – and breaching them is a criminal offence punishable with up to five years in jail.  

DC Squires and West Midlands Police Public Protection officers deliver FGM advice sessions at schools, including Islamic faith centres, and have given training inputs to council and hospital staff ahead of new rules being introduced next month making it mandatory for such professionals to refer child FGM victims to police. 

Over a seven-month period – from September 2014 to March 2015 – 632 women and girls were seen in West Midlands hospitals for FGM-related treatment. Most are not new cases; instead they are believed to have been cut overseas but sought help for repeat infections, infertility or severe pain as a result of the surgery. 

“The majority of FGM cases we’re alerted to are historic and likely to have been carried out abroad,” added DC Squires, “but do we believe some girls are being cut here in the West Midlands? Yes…our intelligence suggests girls are brought to the area, and other major UK cities, for the procedure to take place.

“Trying to identify where and when this is happening is the real problem, though, because information is not forthcoming from communities. We need to hear from people who suspect this is going on so that we can take action to protect girls who otherwise will be physically and psychologically scarred for life.”

West Midlands Police officers also run operations at Birmingham Airport speaking to families who’ve spent extended holidays in countries known to practice FGM in an attempt to identify vulnerable girls, ones who’ve undergone the procedure, or the cutters themselves.

The most recent was at arrivals on September 1: a total of 14 families were intercepted on their way back from FGM-practising counties with two cases being forwarded to the force’s Public Protection Unit for further investigation. 

The same school holiday operation last year saw officers target two flights and stop 11 families. Concerns were raised for a five-year-old girl found travelling with a mother and 14-year-old sister who’d both been subjected to historic FGM, plus another group who were obstructive when questioned about FGM. Both were followed up by children’s services and West Midlands Police.

Meanwhile, DC Squires hopes a new poster campaign due to appear in ‘hard-to-reach’ communities – plus working with FGM campaigners like 32-year-old Sarata who came to the UK in 2010 – will encourage information on vulnerable girls and cutters. 

She added: “The poster has been developed with community members and support groups and will be placed in schools and prominent locations…it’s a ‘softer’ approach to try and work alongside communities to change attitudes about the illegal practice.

“The government has pledged to end FGM within a generation; this can be done, but the change has to come from within communities. It’s well known that women affected by FGM don’t attribute their health issues with having had the procedure, problems like pain during intercourse, urinary tract infections, fistula, and menstrual problems.

“There is also a mistaken belief that FGM is required by religions such as Islam and Christianity – in reality FGM is not condoned by any religious text. By addressing these issues within communities, cultural change will gradually happen. Change won’t happen overnight, this is an issue that has been around for thousands of years – but change will happen, and is happening already.”

Anyone (professionals, community members, FGM survivors) can call the NSPCC’s FGM helpline anonymously on 0800 028 3550 or to speak to West Midlands Police’s Public Protection Unit – to report information on suspected FGM offenders or concerns for potential victims – call the 101 number.