Female genital mutilation and a nurse's duty to report cases to the police

The recent conviction of a woman for assisting another person to undertake female genital mutilation (FGM) on a three-year-old British girl during a trip to Kenya, has been hailed as evidence of the success of the duty on nurses, teachers and doctors to report suspected cases of FGM (Weaver, 2023).

It is estimated that more than 200 million girls and women worldwide are currently living with the consequences of FGM, mainly in 30 countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia (World Health Organization (WHO), 2023).

The practice is recognised internationally as a violation of human rights and constitutes an extreme form of discrimination against women (WHO, 2023). As it is nearly always carried out on minors, it is also a violation of the rights of children and breaches the significant harm threshold necessary for state intervention to protect children.