Hospital and GP attendances about female genital mutilation in England have risen by 15%, according to NHS figures, prompting a call for greater protection for girls.
There were 14,355 attendances about FGM in the 2023-24 financial year, according to NHS Digital statistics, compared with 12,475 the previous year.
There was also a rise in the number of individual women and girls who visited NHS services in regards to FGM, from 5,870 in 2022-23 to 6,655 in 2023-24. Attendances are a different measurement as an individual can have several attendances in a year.
The head of Barnardo’s National FGM Centre said FGM was a form of child abuse. “More needs to be done to protect girls – and to offer support for all those affected,” Rohma Ullah said. “That support just isn’t available at the moment.”
FGM has been illegal in the UK since 1985, and in 2003 the law was strengthened to try to prevent girls travelling from the UK to undergo FGM abroad.
Since the NHS began collecting FGM statistics in 2015, GP surgeries and NHS trusts have reported a total of 37,615 individual women and girls having FGM, and 102,155 attendances regarding the practice.
The National FGM Centre was set up in 2015 to support those who have experienced FGM and works with local government, police and the NHS to identify girls at risk. Ullah said there was often a gap of many years between FGM happening and it being recorded because it was most commonly picked up during midwife or obstetrician appointments.
“Female genital mutilation is a form of child abuse which has a devastating and deadly impact on the lives of girls and women. At the heart of each case is a girl who has been cut,” Ullah said.
The prevention of FGM needed to be treated as a public health issue, she said.
“Change must come from working within communities who are affected by it, and local authorities need to develop strategies that allow for dialogue with their communities.
“It is also vital to introduce mandatory training for anyone who works to support children and vulnerable adults. That training should focus on how to spot the signs of girls who might be at risk or who have undergone FGM – as well as how to alert the relevant support services.”
In 2019, the NHS announced the opening of eight specialist FGM walk-in clinics across England, which provide access to support for thousands of women.
In 2023, a woman was found guilty of handing over a three-year-old British girl for FGM during a trip to Kenya, in the first conviction of its kind.
NHS England has been approached for comment.
