Female Genital Mutilation Special Initiative

"City Parochial Foundation, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and Rosa (the UK Fund for Women and Girls) ... collaborated to establish a new UK-wide Special Initiative to fund community based, preventive work to safeguard children from the practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).

"The initiative is supporting organisations based within practising communities - in particular, women’s organisations. Approximately £1million has been invested in 15 organisations throughout the UK over a three-year period. The projects will start in January 2010. ...

"The initiative’s aim is to reduce the risk to girls and young women in the UK of undergoing genital mutilation in all its forms. Research undertaken by FORWARD in 2007, in collaboration with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the Department of Midwifery at City University, estimated that nearly 66,000 women with FGM were living in England and Wales and 21,000 girls under the age of eight were estimated to be at risk of FGM. These figures are based on the 2001 census and are likely to have increased since then due to migration to the UK from practising countries."

Related Sourcewatch

 * Baroness Ruth Rendell, Ambassador to the initiative
 * Maggie Baxter, Chair of the initiative’s Advisory Group