Parents will face prosecution if they fail to stop their daughters undergoing female genital mutilation (FGM) under new measures being announced.<\/p>\n
Prime Minister David Cameron is unveiling a \u00a31.4m prevention programme aimed at ending the practice at a global summit in London.<\/p>\n
It is estimated that up to 137,000 women and girls living in England and Wales could have undergone FGM.<\/p>\n
The Girl Summit will also look at ways to end forced marriage.<\/p>\n
Hosted by the UK government and children’s charity Unicef, the summit will be attended by international politicians, campaigners including the Pakistani teenager Malala Yousafzai, and women who have undergone FGM.<\/p>\n
Speaking ahead of the conference, Mr Cameron said: “All girls have the right to live free from violence and coercion, without being forced into marriage or the lifelong physical and psychological effects of female genital mutilation.<\/p>\n
“Abhorrent practices like these, no matter how deeply rooted in societies, violate the rights of girls and women across the world, including here in the UK.”<\/p>\n
‘Big challenge’<\/strong><\/p>\n The FGM prevention programme will see the NHS working with girls affected by the practice.<\/p>\n Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, the executive director of UN Women, said the situation is improving but many girls remain at risk.<\/p>\n She said: “There’s traction and more people that are willing to take a stand, but not enough yet.<\/p>\n “The fact that 30 million girls are at risk of being cut in the coming years clearly means that we have a big challenge on our hands.”<\/p>\n Priscilla Karim, who was forced to undergo FGM in Sierra Leone aged nine, described her ordeal.<\/p>\n She said: “I felt the worst pain of my life and a heavy object sitting on my chest and I just passed out.<\/p>\n “It’s like a taboo, they don’t tell you about it. You cannot tell anybody.<\/p>\n “I grew up with the fear that if I say to anyone, I was going to die because that was what they made me believe – that whatever happens there is kind of a secret.”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Parents will face prosecution if they fail to stop their daughters undergoing female genital mutilation (FGM) under new measures being announced. Prime Minister David Cameron is unveiling a \u00a31.4m prevention programme aimed at ending the practice at a global summit in London. It is estimated that up to 137,000 women and girls living in England […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":33551,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[15],"class_list":["post-33548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-chinese"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33548\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/33551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}