FGM/Cutting
| Date | 01 December 2015 |
| Published date | 01 December 2015 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0022018315614447 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
FGM/Cutting: Contextualising
Recent Legal Developments
Michael Jefferson
School of Law, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK
Abstract
This paper seeks to present issues relating to female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM) in a
manner which is more socio-legal than is usual in this journal, partly because, while there is an
important new statute, the Serious Crimes Act 2015, the accepted view of FGM across the
world (e.g. mention is made below of Egypt) is that criminal law alone is most unlikely to
prevent or deter FGM; this approach is very much that recently adopted in England and Wales
and indeed in the other countries within the UK. Changing criminal law affecting women and
girls at risk of FGM in the UK is, moreover, of little use if ‘vacation cutting’ (see below) takes
place. Non-coercive means within a comprehensive strategy, including cross-agency action and
utilising NGOs, seem in this arena to be more successful than coercive ones. Criminal law is
dealt in this article within this socio-legal context and not in a freestanding manner as is usual.
Keywords
Female genital mutilation, FGM, cutting, non-fatal offences
Introduction
Summer 2015 is a good time to look at English law on female genital mutilation (FGM), also known as
‘cutting’. That latter term is used to emphasise that no judgment is being made as to the ethics of the
communities which practise FGM; ‘mutilation’ is used to stress the gravity of the various FGM proce-
dures. Both cutting and FGM are meant to reflect the (fundamental and universal) human rights nature of
the use of FGM. There are two UN General Resolutions on the topic, one from December 2012, one from
December 2014, but human rights are not the focus of this article. Please see the further reading noted at
the end of this article for a starting place for human rights and FGM. Parliament has recently passed a
statute, the Serious Crime Act 2015, expanding the scope of the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 (the
2015 Act inserts new provisions into the 2003 one); the first ever prosecution under the 2003 statute took
place earlier in the year; and several other important developments, legal and otherwise, are worthy of
attention. These are all noted below.
Corresponding author:
Michael Jefferson, School of Law, Bartolome
´House, The University of Sheffield, Winter Street, Sheffield, S3 7ND, UK.
E-mail: m.jefferson@sheffield.ac.uk
The Journal of Criminal Law
2015, Vol. 79(6) 411–421
ªThe Author(s) 2015
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DOI: 10.1177/0022018315614447
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