One Law For All: Sharia ‘Courts’: Why Regulation is Not the Answer

Source: mass emailing

'Sharia' and other religious systems of arbitration are back in the news once again. There appears to be growing recognition of the profoundly discriminatory nature of religious arbitration systems which relegate Muslim and other minority women to second rate systems of justice. But is regulation the answer?

A close examination of the workings of 'Sharia' Councils and the Muslim Arbitration Tribunal reveal serious failings that flout principles of the rule of law and undermine the rights of women in fundamental ways. These forums use fundamentalist and ultra-conservative definitions of 'Sharia laws' in highly selective and authoritarian ways; they seek to impose a social culture of 'Zina' which compel women to resolve marital and family disputes using 'Sharia laws' or risk becoming social outcastes and worse.

Evidence from the UK and elsewhere shows that such religious arbitration bodies function primarily as a means of exercising control over female sexuality and autonomy. They do not treat women as full persons before the law, but instead subject them to degrading questions and investigative procedures and impede them from leaving violent relationships even if they experience torture or ill-treatment and are at risk of losing their lives. The emphasis is centrally on reconciliation even if this conflicts with the protection principle and gender equality. Questions of marriage, divorce, inheritance, financial and children arrangements as well as polygamy and other cultural forms of harm, must be determined by the civil and criminal laws of the land and not so called 'religious laws.' This also means that all religious marriages must be registered by law.

Politician s and lawyers would do well to listen to the voices of over 300 abused minority women who signed a letter last year describing how their rights are violated on a daily basis. Any incorporation and recognition of religious forums would sanction the place of religious leaders in making decisions about women's lives and normalise deeply patriarchal value systems.

We therefore urge caution in accepting the suggestion that a 'compromise' involving regulation and training provides a way forward.  Regulation is neither desirable nor viable for the following reasons: 

• The sheer diversity of religious interpretations would make regulation unachievable;
• Parallel legal systems create and legitimise arbitrary systems of 'justice' which means less scrutiny by state institutions out of fear of 'causing offence';
• There will not be sufficient resources to offer impartial judicial oversight of religious arbitration bodies to ensure compatibility with anti-discrimination and human rights law;
• In the wider society there is continuing public scrutiny and revision of law and policy and under a democratic parliamentary process but religious law is not open to such scrutiny;
• There is no political will to reform from within – religious forums around the world have been resistant to progressive reforms on women;
• Self regulation through bodies such as The Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board (MINAB) and the Board of Sharia Councils has failed to ensure the rights of women and children are protected;
• The accommodation of such forums, will amount to state sponsorship of fundamentalist and authoritarian forms of governance that encourage intolerance, misogyny and homophobia. 

As black and minority women, we demand adherence to one legal system grounded within universal human rights principles. We cannot and will not settle for anything less.

Signatorie s:

Pragna Patel, Director, Southall Black Sisters

Yasmin Rehman, Trustee, Centre for Secular Space

Maryam Namazie, Spokesperson, One Law for All

Diana Nammi, Executive Director, Iranian & Kurdish Women's Rights Organisation

Sadia Hameed, Spokesperson, Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain

Gina Khan, Spokesperson, One Law for All

Houzan Mahmoud, Cofounder, Culture Project

Rahila Gupta, Writer and Journalist

Sara Khan, CEO, Inspire

Nasreen Rehman, Forced Marriage Commission

Marieme Helie Lucas, Founder, Secularism is a Woman's Issue

Fatou Sow, International Director, Women Living Under Muslim Laws.

Gita Sahgal, Director, Centre for Secular Space

For more information, contact:

Pragna Patel

Director of Southall Black Sisters

pragna@southallblacksiste rs.co.uk

0208571959 5

Gina Khan and Maryam Namazie

Spokespers ons of One Law for All

onelawforall@gmail.com

0771916673 1

Women's Networking Hub: WHAT IS BIRMINGHAM DOING TOWARDS THE ELIMINATION OF VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND GIRLS? (10 Dec 2015)

Source:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/colab-what-is-birmingham-doing-towards-the-elimination-of-violence-against-women-and-girls-tickets-19509704050?ref=enivtefor001&invite=ODc1ODYwMy9kZWJyYWV1QHlhaG9vLmNvbS8w&utm_source=eb_email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=inviteformalv2&utm_term=eventpage

Hello  , You are invited to the following event: #CoLab: What is Birmingham Doing Towards the Elimination of Violence against Women and Girls? Event to be held at the following time, date and location: Thursday, 10 December 2015 from 10:00 to 16:30 (GMT) Impact Hub Birmingham 58 Oxford Street B5 5NY Birmingham United Kingdom View Map Calling all Collaborators! Participate in Birmingham's movement towards eliminating violence against women and girls and be part of collaborative learning and collective change. The 10 December is Human Rights Day but also marks the end of '16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence Campaign'. It is a time to galvanise action to end violence against all women and girls around the world. 2015 marks 20-years since the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, so we are opening up a one-off CoLab to explore not only where we are now but where we want to be in in the next 20-years? #CoLab Co-Labs are co-learning and co-creative spaces which bring together different actors to generate collective dialogue and action around questions that matter to all of us. Whether you are working with women affected by violence, an activist, health worker, police officer, academic or community member – EVERYONE is welcome and everyone will have space to participate! We want everyone's knowledge and experiences to be valued and for everyone to be part of collaborative learning and collective change. You will build on experiences, knowledge and practice through collaborative dialogue, interacting with and connecting with each other, inquiring into current practice and collectively exploring new ideas and action. Organisers/ Facilitators Together with Impact Hub Birmingham, this CoLab is being hosted by Spaces of Change and the Women's Networking Hub. It will be facilitated by Joanne Coysh, who has worked with the United Nations, Oxfam Novib and VSO International, and offers many years of experience of facilitating collaborative learning processes for groups from all over the world. Her aim is to apply this to surface the knowledge in the room, create synergy and galvanise action. Have a Voice Come and participate in CoLab for the day including a shared lunch for £5 and then 'pay as you feel'. Because we value your contribution, we hope you value ours and appreciate not only money towards the cost but also offers of skills and time. Be part of this space of change! #CoLab: What is Birmingham Doing Towards the Elimination of Violence against Women and Girls? Share this event on Facebook and Twitter We hope you can make it. Cheers, Women's Networking Hub, Spaces of Change & Impact Hub

Eventbrite | 155 5th St | San Francisco, CA 94103

Labour Party: Jeremy Corbyn’s speech to Women’s Conference 2015

The Midland - Muslim Women's Network

openDemocracy: Hidden women human rights defenders in the UK

Source: https://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/jennifer-allsopp/hidden-women-human-rights-defenders-in-uk#.VTQUUMBxQDE.twitter

Hidden women human rights defenders in the UK

JENNIFER ALLSOPP 18 April 2015

Without recognising the work of women who seek to protect human rights domestically, the UK government risks seeing the activist’s role as a stage of international development rather than as a core function of democracy. 

Focus E15 march, London 2014. Photo: Philip RobinsTwenty years after presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s globally resonantspeech which declared that ‘women’s rights are human rights’, the term Woman Human Rights Defender (WHRD) has become a zeitgeist of the international development and protection framework. It’s a welcome response to the acute violence faced by women activists around the world. The term refers to – and is commonly adopted by – both those who fight to secure women’s human rights, and women working to secure the human rights of all. As Betty Makoni, Zimbabwean activist and founder of Girl Child Network, once told me, as WHRDs ‘we hold the front-line.'

WHRD is a label that’s truly international in nature. It encompasses women inBurma and the DRC seeking justice in the face of state violence; activists in the biggest arms producing nations campaigning against killer robots; and those sheltering their communities from the devastating effects of environmental degradation. The term also carries a normative punch, the subject of a number of regional and international instruments and missions including the 1998 UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders; 2013 UN General Assembly Resolution on the Protection of WRHD; 2004 EU Guidelines on Human Rights Defenders; and work of the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

This political resonance, coupled with growing recognition of the commonality of the objectives and challenges experienced by women activists across diverse contexts, provides the backdrop to this year’s Nobel Women’s Initiativeconference on the defence of women human rights defenders. The Nobel Women’s Initiative is headed by eight female Nobel Peace Prize laureates. Between April 24 and April 26 they will join over 100 women from around the world in the Netherlands to take stock of the progress made to date, explore ways of building global support and scope out the potential for future change. At openDemocracy 50.50 we are publishing articles by participants framing this year's theme, and we will be reporting live from the gathering.

As I prepared for the conference I was curious to see whether the message of solidarity towards WHRDs had reached grassroots activists in my home country, the UK. For while the term is readily employed to serve the government’s development agenda abroad, with ring-fenced funds in the international development budget and consistent attention from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the UK is often accused of operating a politics of denialor ‘double standards’ when it comes to domestic women’s human rights.

I spoke to three women activists who are part of the UK’s increasingly animatedcivil society landscape about their experiences.

Human rights in the UK: ‘the dustbin of history’?

27 year old Danielle is an environmental activist. Does she identify as a WHRD? ‘I’ve not heard the term before’, she comments, ‘but it makes sense. I see human rights and climate change as being inextricably linked. It’s primarily a huge social justice issue linked to people’s right to survive and our ability to maintain basic human rights. The more we talk about this existential challenge in terms of human rights rather than the environment the stronger it is’. Danielle cites Naomi Klein’s analysis on capitalism versus climate as fundamental to her understanding of the environment, human rights and social justice. She believes that the systemic changes needed to tackle the climate crisis provide ‘a real opportunity to re-establish structures in a more socially equitable way’.

Sarah, a 27 year old London based anti-austerity activist with campaign groupsSisters Uncut and Focus E15 has also never heard the term WHRD. Does it resonate? ‘On some level it does’, she reflects. ‘Human rights is not something I refer to, but a lot of what I do is to defend something along the lines of human rights and social justice. It’s about addressing the lack of social justice for women, people of colour and working class people at the brunt of marginalisation.’ We discuss how austerity in the UK has eroded human rights in concrete terms, devastating the lives of single mothers, survivors of sexual violence and disabled individuals by closing key support services which provided access to food and housing. In the space of a year almost 1 million adults and children have been forced to rely on food banks.

Much of Sarah’s current work centres on the housing crisis. ‘We have a situation of forced displacement’, she explains, ‘working class and ethnic minority people are being pushed out of their communities based on financial speculation.’ I ask whether human rights come into it. ‘Yes’, she reflects, ‘despite problems in the media and the way human rights are presented inEurope there’s a consensus that people should have access to a general level of being.’ But her concern is that human rights alone are not enough: ‘signing up to more legislation is not going to solve a lot of the problems for me. Human rights can help but not take it away. Women’s suffering will stay until certain people stop having massive interests in maintaining inequality and the capitalist system’.

Latefa, an Algerian born activist, is the only one of the three women I interview who has previously heard the term WHRD. It resonates with her work promoting women’s human rights in the UK asylum context. ‘For me’, says Latefa, ‘being a WHRD is a useful identity, it means to fight or give voice to other women who have no opportunity to talk or fight because they’re still under oppression’. The oppression, she explains, can be familial, societal or because of one’s insecure immigration status.

Before she came to the UK, Latefa was a woman’s human rights advocate in Algeria, working with trade unions against sexual harassment and for the promotion of labour rights. ‘I was shocked when I came to the UK and faced racism’, she explains. ‘I remain shocked by what I see here – when I see pregnant asylum seeking women detained or deported. What I see in the UK is relativist human rights, human rights are for some people but not for everyone’. The UK government has been criticised in recent years for slashing legal aid tovulnerable migrants and domestic violence survivors and remains the only country in Europe without a time limit on detaining migrants – including the pregnant, the elderly and the disabled.

Solidarity protest for women refugees

In her experience it’s hard, says Latefa, for some British citizens to empathise with the human rights abuses happening on their doorstep. She tells the story of a Pakistani lady deported with her child after many years living in Wales: ‘a white middle class woman who knew her asked me, “but you’re not asking for all women who have suffered domestic violence to come here?” Her message was, “domestic violence is a norm in Pakistan so she can live with that; but she can’t live with that in the UK – under my nose.” She wanted to believe herself that she was in the country of human rights. But there are issues that transcend borders.’

At risk defending human rights

Much international work which seeks to protect WHRDs focuses on documenting the challenges, risks and harms which come with confronting such issues. My next question to the activists is, what challenges do they face in the UK?

For Sarah, the main risks in London stem from the police. ‘My experience has been the opposite to what you’re brought up to believe’, she tells me, ‘as a kid you’re told if you’re lost go and talk to a police woman, when you’re an activist it becomes the opposite. There’s a lot of concern about police infiltration and intelligence gathering, raising issues of safety and also welfare’. The second risk comes from physical confrontation with the police. ‘A few years ago I witnessed horrendous stuff happening in the context of the education riots, massive heavy handedness.’ As a woman of colour, Sarah is also concerned about institutional racism.

Danielle has also faced intimidating encounters with the police, including being arrested and prosecuted for actions which involved shutting down core parts of infrastructure. ‘Coal and gas power stations are high stress and high risk’, she explains. ‘It’s quite an intense and terrifying process to go through so the ability to support others is really important’. The best kind of groups she’s been involved with, she tells me, are the groups that respect each other and put effort into building and maintaining relationships. ‘The environmental direct action movement has previously been characterised as very white and very male’, she continues, ‘there’s a certain culture around it. Being a woman in that space is important to distil and dilute that, to bring in a less macho component. The actions I’ve done in all women groups have had a distinctly different tone; we’ve been able to deal with difficult situations with less bravado and more honestly. I’m motivated by the fact more women need to be out there doing bold things.’

For Latefa, like Danielle, often challenges can lie in the makeup of the group: ‘sometime there’s division, she laments, ‘the challenge is to put gender above your dress, your religion, your culture, even your nationality, but it’s hard. They look at you as a refugee, or the brown one, or the Muslim one. This, in the UK, is something I challenge.’

Looking outwards

If a significant contrast exists between the UK government’s discourse on human rights abroad and at home, I wonder how the activists relate to the efforts of the Nobel Women’s Initiative to unite women activists around a common agenda to strengthen women’s participation and access to their human rights.

Sarah agrees that this is important: women, regardless of their backgrounds, need to be at the forefront of the rights conversation at all levels: local, national, and international.  ‘There are so few positive women led spaces in the world that have any kind of impact politically’, she continues, ‘so if this is the beginning of that then it’s amazingly positive. The next question is, what’s the action?’

Danielle sympathises. In recent years she’s felt the power of international solidarity. ‘What I do is in solidarity with the rest of people in the world who will feel the effects of climate change’, she explains, ‘but I feel a responsibility stemming from the birthplace of the industrial revolution to do the bulk of the action here’. She recounts how on Global Divestment Day they worked alongside Bangladeshi and Colombian communities directly influenced by fossil fuel extraction funded by British companies and investors. ‘It was brilliant’, she reminisces. ‘We also had a solidarity letter coming from Uganda saying keep up the fight and that was so much more powerful than we realised. We just suddenly received this email from a group of activists saying “Divest London we stand with you” and I just cried.’

Divest London. Photo: Peter Marshall

In conversation with Danielle, Latefa and Sarah I became aware of the big risk which the UK government runs of exoticising WHRD, as seeing their work as a stage of international development rather than a core function of society and democracy. Without committing to human rights – and recognising rather than stalling the work of those who seek to protect them at home – the UK risks spreading a dichotomous and hypocritical narrative of international development and domestic denial.

The challenges faced by women activists in the UK are clearly different from many WHRDs around the world, but there are also important overlaps. And as human rights become increasingly stigmatised in Britain – with headlines from popular tabloids such as ‘End of Human Rights Farce’ and ‘We’ll Put the Rights Act in the Dustbin of History’ – we must be careful that, in our pragmatism, we don’t become isolated and stop communicating with our international allies. Transnational solidarity is fundamental because patriarchy affects us all and can only be reformed with a global movement. This is not a new message, but one that comes to us from one of Britain’s most celebrated female activists, Sylvia Pankhurst. Although remembered for her role in the domestic women’s suffrage movement, Pankhurst was also a friend of Ethiopia and spoke out loudly and often in solidarity with its national independence movement. Though now a national heroine, in her writings, she once noted, ‘I would like to be remembered as a citizen of the world’.

Read articles by participants and speakers framing and addressing this year's Nobel Women's Initiative conference theme: 'Defending the Defenders'.   Jennifer Allsopp will be reporting live from the conference for 50.50. Read previous years' coverage.

Muslim Women's Network UK: Help shape UK priorities on Gender Equality

Source: mass emailing

Have your say! Complete the Survey and Help Shape UK Priorities on Gender Equality Dear Network Member, The Government Equalities Office wants to hear from you on. What progress has been made to improve the lives of Women and Girls in the UK since 2010? What future priorities for Women and Girls the Government should focus on in the next 5 years?        You can have your say by completing this short and anonymous survey. The survey is open to all. It takes   less than 5 minutes to complete. Your vital comments will help shape the UK's priorities on gender equality in the years to come. Please click here to participate in the survey.

Z-Arts (in Manchester, England 08 November 2014): Veil

Source and please go to this link for other Veil events:  http://www.z-arts.org/events/veil/

Veil

8/11/14
11:00 am - 9:00 pm

The niqab debate: “Is the veil the biggest issue we face in the UK?”
“...the Conservative MP Sarah Wollaston ... compared the niqab to an ‘invisibility cloak’ and said women should be clear that the burqa is a symbol not of liberation but of repression and segregation’... What has been missing from many of these arguments is the voice of Muslim women.”—Kira Cochrane, The Guardian 16th September 2013
“I am a mixed race Yorkshire woman who has chosen to wear hijab as part of my identity as a Muslim. I love music, fashion and fast food, but you wouldn’t know unless you asked me!” —Zanib Thackary, a VEIL participant
VEIL is an immersive installation that becomes a performance space for spoken word, created in response to the stories of Muslim women. While protecting their identities, it will reveal the depths and subtleties very often hidden from mainstream/non-Muslim view. It doesn't just feature the niqab, but a range of Muslim women's voices. Step into the voices and stories of these women walk in their shoes and live their lives.
VEIL is an inter-generational, national piece of work, a collaboration between art forms, artists, experiences and stories

With Kay Adshead, Shanaz Gulzar and Kully Thiarai. Supported by Cast

Centre for Women & Democracy: Enewsletter: Losing Women Politicians?

Source: mass emailing

CFWD Enewsletter 107:  14 February 2014 www.cfwd.org.uk   Catherine Samba-Panza The war-torn Central African Republic has turned to a woman nicknamed 'Mother Courage' to lead them. Catherine Samba-Panza, a firece proponent of women's rights, was chosen in January by her country's National Assembly, and becomes the third woman president in the continent. Her gender seems to have been one of her attractions; as campaigner Marie-Louise Yakemba put it 'Everything we have been through has been the fault of men. We think that with a woman, there is at least a ray of hope.' Helen Clark Helen Clark was Prime Minister of New Zealand between 1999 and 2008, and is now leads the United Nations Development Programme, the first woman to hold this office. Now she is being tipped to succeed UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon when his term of office comes to an end in 2015. The UN has never had a female leader, and breaking this particular bit of the glass ceiling would have real resonance across the world. Clark is unlikely to be the only woman whose name will be mentioned in this connection in the next few months, so the process of appointing the new head of the UN will certainly be interesting.   In case you missed it: Here are the Defence Ministers of Norway, Sweden, Netherlands and Germany pictured at a security conference in Munich and tweeted by Sewdish politician Carl Bildt who referrred to them as 'power girls'. Certainly they don't look like the traditional idea of a defence minister; they are, instead a welcome change. UK political leaders please take note! Women MPs leaving the Commons This week the Speaker, John Bercow, said that Parliament was losing too many women MPs. Other people have claimed that the Conservative Party 'has a problem with women', and that Labour women are also leaving the Commons at the next election. CFWD's latest piece of research looks at the facts of how many women (and men) are standing down, and how long they have served as MPs for. You can read the full Factsheet here, but the headline figures are: retiring Conservative women MPs have served an average of 5 years; retiring Labour women MPs have served an average of 25 years; reteiring Conservative men have served an average of 26 years. So it does indeed seem as though something interesting is happening with the 2010 intake of Conservative women, although until we get to the election and see the full picture it is not really possible to be definite about whether this is confined to women, and, if so, exactly what the cause of it is. Whilst we were at it, we took a look at the answer to the often-asked question: 'whatever happened to all those women elected in 1997?'. We are sometimes led to believe that these women did not do well, that many of them left politics early, and that they were unlikely ever to be hreard of again. In fact, as our research showed, there is no real basis for those assumptions at all. It is true that women were more likely than their male colleagues to retire, although only 2 actually did so after only one term, with most staying in Parliament until 2010 and many still in office. The 1997 intake of women were also proportinately more likely than the 1997 intake of men to achieve cabinet rank, and current members of both the Cabinet and the Shadow Cabinet were first elected in 1997. At a time when the representaion and presence of women in Parliament has become a matter for allegation and counter-allegation between (male) politicians, it is useful to know what the facts actually are, if only so that we can make sure we address the right problem! Women win in Tunisia Tunisian campaigners have won a real victory in their battle to protect and promote women's rights as part of the new constitution. Following a bitter three-day long debate in the Parliament it was agreed to include clauses guaranteeing gender equality in legislative bodies and protecting women from domestic violence. This followed a campaign by women from across the political spectrum, bringing together women from the then-governing Islamist Ennahda and the secular Ettakattol parties. Tunisia is the first country in the Arab world to include such measures in its constitution, and although there was disagreement amongst women as well as men, the proposals were passed in January. 26.7 percent of Tunisian MPs are women, including 45 percent of Ennahda's MPs. However, women do not do so well in ministerial terms; the new technocratic and independent caretaker cabinet, which will oversee new elections, includes only three women, and structural changes mean that the women's ministry, which had been separate and had some success) is now submerged in a larger ministry headed by a man. As the most secular of the Arab countries, Tunisia offers a picture of both the opportunities and the challenges women face, and their progress over the coming years will be interesting.   PMQs: Tuned in or turned off? A new report from the Hansard Society has found that Prime Minister's Question Time makes just 12 percent of people proud of their Parliament. It looks in detail at why it is so disliked and makes some suggestions about what could be done about it. PMQs is often cited as exemplifying the kind of culture and atmosphere that turns women off politics and makes them less likely to think of standing for public office, and this report is a timely addition to the current debate about broadening the base from which politicians are drawn.     Copyright © 2014 Centre for Women & Democracy, All rights reserved. You have received this E-Newsletter either because you are a CFWD Subscriber, or because you have signed up to our email list, or because you have expressed an interest in our work. If you do not want to receive it in future, please let us know please unsubscribe and we will remove you from the list. Our mailing address is: Centre for Women & Democracy 2 Blenheim Terrace Leeds, West Yorkshire LS2 9JG United Kingdom

Women's Views on News: The campaign against FBM in the UK goes on

Source: http://www.womensviewsonnews.org/2014/01/the-campaign-against-fgm-in-the-uk-goes-on/

The campaign against FGM in the UK goes on

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Posted by Alice Powell on Jan 15, 2014 in Society | 0 comments

And last year’s coverage of Female Genital Mutilation may well save lives.

The UK government’s inquiry into Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), launched last month, proved a fitting end to 2013, a year that saw the issue propelled to the national spotlight.

The UK’s Home Affairs Select Committee will release the findings of this inquiry into female genital mutilation in the UK and why there has not been a single prosecution of FGM in the UK next month.

The Committee will also, among other questions, identify which groups of girls in the UK are most at risk and examine the respective roles of the police, health and education officials in putting an end to FGM.

FGM is the removal, often without anaesthetic, of external female genitalia for non-medical reasons.

It is a ritual linked to a society’s desire to control women and their sexuality that is usually performed on young girls before they reach puberty and is predominantly carried out in parts of Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

It has no health benefits for girls and women, and can result in haemorrhaging, infection or death.

Long-term consequences for women and girls include recurrent urinary tract infections and complications in childbirth and newborn death.

Members of some migrant communities in the UK continue to practise FGM, either in the UK itself or by sending girls abroad for the procedure.

And it is estimated that 66,000 women living in the UK are FGM survivors.

FGM is illegal in the UK, and has been since 1985. In 2003 it also became illegal to take a UK citizen or permanent resident abroad to have FGM.

But over 1,700 victims were referred to the UK’s specialist clinics in the last two years, and with 24,000 girls at risk of FGM in the UK, campaigners have been calling on the UK government to do much more.

The Home Affairs inquiry is a welcome move and was a fitting note on which to end the year. And while campaigners against FGM, such as Daughters of Eve or Equality Now, have long been active,  2013 saw their work propel the issue into the national spotlight.

In April, the NSPCC launched a 24-hour phoneline that offered help, advice and information to anyone who may be at risk – or suspects someone else to be at risk – of FGM.

By September, the helpline had uncovered 34 potential cases of FGM and referred them to the Metropolitan Police.

FGM also featured  for the first time on a prime-time television show. Hospital drama Casualty included a storyline about a young woman who had been a victim of FGM and wanted to save her sister from the same fate.

In November, the Royal College of Midwives, trade unions and Equality Now released a report detailing a list of recommendations for tackling FGM.

Details of the report and its recommendations have been covered here, but they included treating FGM as child abuse and empowering medical professionals to recognise and report cases of FGM.

The same month, Channel 4 screened a documentary about FGM, called ‘The Cruel Cut’, created by co-founder of Daughters of Eve, Leyla Hussein.

Hussein also launched a petition calling on the government to draw up and implement a ‘National Strategy and Action Plan to eliminate FGM in the UK’.

The petition is 6000 signatures away from being considered for debate by the Backbench Business Committee. Please sign it.

Recently, Home Affairs Minister Norman Baker announced that teachers and nurses would receive training on how to identify girls who might be at risk of FGM.

Last year saw an unprecedented amount of coverage of FGM, crucially raising awareness of the issue.

People are often unsure about how to talk about FGM and misplaced fears about appearing culturally insensitive can encourage silence. Promoting awareness and understanding of FGM helps dispel the myths and misconceptions around it.

While the government’s actions have been welcomed, more still needs to be done.

While 2013 was a year which saw many successes in the campaign to end FGM. let us hope, for the sake of those 24,000 girls currently at risk of FGM and the thousands of other girls and women who need support, that progress continues – accelerates – in 2014.