Victims of FGM could get anonymity in court

 
3 April 2014

Victims of female genital mutilation could be granted anonymity in court in the same way as rape victims to encourage more to come forward.

A senior minister told the Standard that the Government is looking at ways to protect women and girls who bravely agree to give evidence against people who carry out the crime.

Justice Minister Damian Green said: “The Government is committed to tackling and preventing the harmful and abhorrent practice of female genital mutilation.

“We are considering suggestions for strengthening the criminal law on female genital mutilation and we’ll be looking at whether present arrangements for protecting witnesses’ identities are adequate.”

Other potential reforms being looked at include putting parents under a legal duty to protect their children from mutilation. Doctors, teachers and other health and education staff could be given a statutory duty to report suspected cases.

David Cameron pushed tackling FGM up the government agenda in a speech on International Women’s Day when he said: “We shouldn’t rest until we have seen some people go through the courts, get prosecuted and get convicted for this absolutely disgusting practice.”

Director of Public Prosecutions Alison Saunders has called for victims to be given the right to anonymity to make it easier to bring charges against alleged perpetrators.

“It is a very difficult injury to talk about,” she said last month. “It is an abuse of their body and it is not a part of the body that people want to talk about in public.”

Labour’s shadow attorney general, Emily Thornberry, backed the call. “Anonymity is granted to victims of rape because of their sensitive nature and the stigma attached to these offences,” she said. “The sensitivity and stigma that surrounds female genital mutilation is at least as intense and victims should be protected.”

She added: “If anonymity would encourage more victims to come forward then the public interest in providing for this is overwhelming.”

Two people, one a doctor, were charged last month in Britain’s first prosecutions for alleged female genital mutilation. For decades it was a taboo subject but has been dragged out of the shadows by a high-profile campaign led by the Evening Standard.

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