Police stop more than 30 young girls ‘at risk’ of Female Genital Mutilation as they arrive at Heathrow Airport
Families were questioned on their reason for travel and girls were given leaflets about the health and legal risks of “cutting”
YOUNG girls ‘at risk’ of Female Genital Mutilation were stopped by police as they arrived at Heathrow airport yesterday.
Families arriving with children were warned by Scotland Yard officers about FGM as they arrived from "countries of prevalence."
A total of 33 young girls were interviewed on a flight arriving from Nigeria along with families from two other flights from Sierra Leon and Ghana.
The move comes as part of a national week of awareness of FGM - a cultural practice involving cutting girls’ genitals.
The families were questioned on their reason for travel and girls were given leaflets about the health and legal risks of “cutting”.
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They were also warned about the horrific practice of Breast Ironing, a process which stops them from growing.
Campaigner and FGM victim Sarian Kamara, who was “cut” at just 11-years-old in Sierra Leone, said one of the key problems surrounding it is that it is “very very secretive”.
She told : “When I was cut I had no idea what was going to happen.
“You just know that you will have a party with a feast and when you come out you are treated with more respect but no one tells you what happens.
“I was cut along with 15 other girls in my family and, in 26 years, none of us have ever spoken about it.”
FGM, carried out to “protect” girls from sexual advances, is illegal in the UK under the Female Genital mutilation Act 2003.
It can lead to health problems for the victims, leaving them at risk of serious infection and complications during childbirth and intercourse for the rest of their lives.
There were no arrests but Inspector Allen Davis said it is more about prevention of crime.
He said: “It is far better to protect children from FGM and change communities’ mind-set than to deal with the consequences.
“Arrest and prosecution is a very small part of the picture.
“We are regularly speaking to survivors and we end up working closely with communities.
“People are not going to openly admit to us that they have been cut and adults are not going to admit to cutting their children.
"We need communities to talk to us and share information so we have to keep having these conversations.”
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