Recommendation 25

The Government should continue to adopt an approach that looks at prevention and prosecution by funding and engaging with prevention efforts in local communities. Alongside this work, criminal justice agencies should review police intervention and CPS prosecution strategies with a view to increasing the prosecution rate for FGM. We acknowledge the challenges this involves, not least the willingness of survivors to testify against family members, but an effective criminal justice deterrent is a vital part of the process in tackling FGM and it is currently missing. (Recommendation, Paragraph 74)