The Northern Irish Justice, Minister David Ford, has announced that Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) Protection Orders are now enforceable in Northern Ireland. The orders are intended to prevent travel by young girls who are thought to be at risk of being taken abroad to undergo the procedure. The orders will also have domestic effect in protecting women and girls from having the dangerous procedure practised upon them in Northern Ireland and also to protect those of whom it has already been committed on. A breach of a protection order is a criminal offence and can incur a penalty of up to five years imprisonment.
FGM is a cultural and religious practise involving the partial removal of external genital organs of women, usually before puberty and for non-medical reasons. The practise which often causes serious infections, intense pain and life-long serious health problems has been outlawed in many jurisdictions including the United Kingdom and Ireland over the last few years. Despite its prohibition, the prevalence of FGM in the United Kingdom remains high with approximately 60,000 girls under the age of 16 thought to be currently at risk. Further prevention of FGM is made increasingly difficult due to it being carried out in secret by family or community members.
The enactment of this legislation in Northern Ireland comes after the introduction and use of similar laws in the United Kingdom earlier this month. Already authorities in Bedfordshire have utilised the order by seizing passports to prevent the removal of two young girls to another jurisdiction to undergo the procedure by family. The family division of the High Court in London has also issued a protection order against a father who intended to bring his three daughters aged six, nine and twelve to Nigeria to undergo the procedure.
Legislation was introduced in Ireland in 2012 prohibiting the practise of FGM and the removal of a child to another jurisdiction to undergo the procedure. The Irish legislation does not however go as far as its UK equivalent. Ireland’s first FGM clinic providing treatment for victims opened last year in the Irish Family Planning Clinic in Dublin 1. AkiDwa, the national network of migrant women, advocate for greater awareness and prevention of FGM in Ireland.
Click here and here to read articles on the use of FGM protection orders in the UK.
Click here to read the Criminal Justice (Female Genital Mutilation) Act 2012.