UKIP calls for compulsory checks of girls at risk of FGM

UKIP's women and equality spokesman, Margot Parker, has called for compulsory checks of girls at risk of Female Genital Mutilation at school and following foreign holidays.

The new policy unveiled today is similar to a French initiative which has resulted in a large number of prosecutions for mutilating young girls. It would also be illegal not to report FGM if discovered and there would be a presumption of prosecution for the parents of mutilated girls.

The police has unsurprisingly attracted criticism from the left who have denounced it as racist and a breach of human rights. These are the same people, of course, who had no problem with Diane Abbot, Keith Vaz and a number of other MPs calling for compulsory checks of girls at risk of FGM in 2014.

Despite being a criminal offence since 1985, there has been just one prosecution for FGM and that was on a tenuous charge of redoing childhood FGM when stitching up a mother who had given birth. Unsurprisingly, the doctor involved was acquitted as he was merely putting everything back the way he found it.