Those of us who’ve followed the debate on Female Genital Mutliation and have spoken out against it know that the situation regarding FGM in Britain is bad.  However to get an idea of how bad the situation is we need only to look at Birmingham.

The Birmingham Mail is carrying a story about how rife FGM is in Birmingham.  Hospitals there are seeing 50 cases per month of women who have been abused by FGM.

The Birmingham Mail said:

“A Birmingham hospital is treating up to 50 victims of female genital mutilation a month, an MP has revealed.

Gisela Stuart (Lab, Edgbaston) also demanded better training for doctors and midwives tasked with persuading families not to put their daughters through the ordeal.

“In the UK health system neither midwives nor health visitors nor GPs as a matter of course get any medical education about this issue,” she said.

“GPs need to tell parents that it is not normal and is wrong – but they need training to help them do it.

“Theoretically you should be able to change attitudes within a generation.”

Ms Stuart said hospitals encountered pregnant women who had undergone the procedure as children.

“In one of our hospitals there as many as 40 to 50 women every month,” she said.

She would not name the hospital but hailed the work of Birmingham Women’s Hospital work on the issue.

“The Women’s Hospital is starting to track the daughters of women who have been cut, because they know those children are at high risk of becoming victims themselves,” Ms Stuart said.

Ministers have ordered every NHS acute hospital to collect information on patients who have undergone female genital mutilation and publish figures.

And education secretary Michael Gove has said that every school in the country is to receive guidance on preventing the practice, which was outlawed in 1985. At least 66,000 girls and women in the UK are believed to have been victims of female genital mutilation,

The practice is most common among some African, Asian and Middle Eastern communities and is often carried out overseas.

West Midlands Police revealed last November that it was to launch a poster campaign in response to a rise in reports of the problem.

Referrals to police increased from seven in 2011 to 24 in 2012 and 32 in the first eight months of last year.”

A poster campaign! Is that all WMP are doing? The Police should be kicking down doors to find the perpetrators of this horrendous crime not pissing around with a poster campaign.  Still, what else could be expected from a police force that is rapidly getting the reputation for being a bit too Shariah-friendly and which hobnobs with dodgy organisations.  A poster campaign although welcome is not nearly enough, what is needed is action and action now.