Reward in female circumcision cases

It is feared that up to 66,000 women and girls in the UK are at risk of genital mutilation, a tradition traced back to many African nations.

One London health specialist said she is treating up to 500 women every year for health problems linked to the practice. But police said no one has ever been prosecuted despite specific new legislation outlawing both those who undertake the procedure and arrange it.

Launching a campaign aimed at raising awareness of the practice, officers from the Metropolitan Police's child abuse unit said it was a hidden crime. They warned that many children are taken overseas during the summer holiday to undergo the procedure.

Officers added there is growing evidence that genital mutilation is also taking place among immigrant communities in the UK.

Detective Chief Superintendent Alastair Jeffrey said the true impact of female circumcision is impossible to measure.

He said: "The timing of this campaign is for one good reason: so we can get in before the summer holidays, a time when young girls are taken abroad and subjected to genital mutilation. We want to get the message over now because if we do we will be able to prevent a number of children having this brutal attack on them."

Defending the campaign, he insisted: "This is child abuse. It is not an attack on anyone's culture, it is an attack on anyone who commits this horrendous abuse of children. This is an appeal to communities themselves to eradicate this practise from within. It is about self-policing. It is recognising the fact that this is abuse."

Female circumcision is most common among people from African and some Middle Eastern nations. Countries with the highest recorded rates include Egypt, Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan, according to health charities. The term female circumcision covers a range of procedures from minor symbolic cuts to the genitals to attacks that involve complete amputation of external body parts.

Girls as young as just several weeks old are attacked by untrained people, sometimes family members, who use non-medical equipment without anaesthetic. Police said instruments such as rusty tin can lids, razor blades and broken glass have been used to cut them, and thorns used to stitch up the wounds. The procedure can lead to both short and long term health problems, while some girls have died from infection. In the UK, any practitioner or person who helps someone else to undertake it, could face up the 14 years' imprisonment under the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003.