The Government has made it mandatory for all NHS hospitals to provide information on patients who have undergone female genital mutilation. Ministers estimate 66,000 women have undergone the brutal practice and 20,000 girls are at risk every year.
Ministers from across government have pushed through tough new measures to stop the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM), making it mandatory for all NHS hospitals to provide information on patients who have undergone FGM.
From April this year NHS hospitals will be required to record:
1 If a patient has had FGM
2 If there is a family history of FGM
3 If an FGM-related procedure has been carried out on a women - (deinfibulation)
By September this year, all acute hospitals must report this data centrally to the Department of Health on a monthly basis.
"In order to combat it and ensure we can care properly for the girls and women who have undergone mutilation we need to build a more accurate nationwide picture of the challenge. This is the first step towards doing that," said Public Health Minister, Jane Ellison.
ITV News Central has been told girls from the UK are being taken abroad to be genitally mutilated - a practice which is against the law.
Here, female genital mutilation victims, working to end the practice, share their stories.
ITV News has learned that the government will announce plans to tackle female genital mutilation in Britain.