OPERATION LIMELIGHT:
British Police, Border Officers Tackle Female Genital Mutilation in Girls under 18years old …Target Nigeria, Somali, Europe
* “It’s a structured, intelligence-led operation that allowed police to raise awareness”-Inspector Allen Davis, Met police’s sexual offences and child abuse command
BY GEORGE ELIJAH OTUMU
BRITISH Government is all out presently to educate and get into conversation with girls under the age of 18 years flying into Heathrow airport or departing the United Kingdom so as to tackle female genital mutilation (FGM) predominantly in Europe, Nigeria and Somalia.
As such, Metropolitan Police and Border Control officers have set their searchlights on all flights from countries where high risk of FGM is prevalent including Nigeria, Somalia and Europe. These girls are cautiously taken to one side, educated on the dangers of FGM.
Police and border control officers are speaking to scores of families at airports travelling to and from high-risk countries in a drive to tackle FGM. Just recently, a British Airways flight from Lagos, Nigeria, was among three arrivals at Heathrow targeted under Operation Limelight.
All families travelling with girls aged under 18 were taken aside for conversations about FGM with police officers and Border Force officials as they stepped off the plane. Similar conversations are taking place in airports across the country, for both arrivals and departures.
This is the real reason Inspector Allen Davis, of the Met police’s sexual offences and child abuse command, described it as a ‘structured, intelligence-led operation’ that allowed police to raise awareness, rather than being aimed specifically at identifying those who might have been cut. Since the operation began in August 2013, there have been five arrests and no prosecutions. Adults aren’t going to admit to cutting children,” Davis said. “We don’t expect that – they know there are serious consequences.”
According to Met Police : “The operation is aimed at sending a message that police are taking the issue seriously and to encourage people to share information about the practice – anything from the routes people typically travel, the times of year when it happens, to concerns about specific children – with them.”
The police denied profiling passengers, saying a European family on a targeted flight would be spoken to by officers in the same way as a family from Nigeria or Somalia. “It isn’t discrimination when you’re treating people with courtesy and explaining your rationale and evidence,” said DCS Ivan Balhatchet, head of the Met’s child abuse command. “What comes first is protecting children … and sometimes that will mean difficult challenges with some communities.”
Figures published on Tuesday showed that between April and June, nearly 1,300 women in the UK were recorded for the first time as having undergone FGM at some point in their lives. The NHS started experimentally gathering statistics last year, and counted 5,700 such women in the first year.
In the vast majority of these cases, the cutting took place abroad. It has been illegal to take a girl overseas for FGM since 2004, and the maximum sentence is 14 years, but no one has been successfully prosecuted for taking part in FGM.
Meanwhile, a small group of anti-FGM activists, who are speaking out against it, watched as the passengers disembarked and ran a gauntlet that included a passport check, a sniffer dog and a line of Border Force and plainclothes officers waiting to speak to families. Some of the activists were scanning the queue of passengers for telltale signs such as girls hobbling, or hunching in a way that could indicate they had been subjected to breast ironing, a practice that is carried out in Cameroon which the Met acknowledges it is only just starting to understand.
For instance, Yusuf Yusuf, who works for a Somali community organisation, said there was an “issue” with targeting and profiling, but added: “Somalis are doing it, so why shouldn’t they be speaking to Somalis?” He was more concerned about the focus on meeting people returning to the country, rather than concentrating on outbound flights. “On the inbound flight, the child’s gone through the process already.”
DC Natalie Reseigh said the police had not yet had someone reveal they or family members had been subjected to FGM. When people were leaving the country, children did not always know what they would face, she said. “If they’re slightly older, that’s where we might stand a chance. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s a last port of call.”
Another activist, Sarian Kamara, who was subjected to both FGM and breast ironing as a girl, said she thought the operation’s real impact was likely to be on a more subtle level. “For those who don’t know it’s against the law, they now know … It’s important for them to know the law’s there to protect these girls.”
It is of hope that African and European leaders would brain-storm to for once, put pragmatic polices in place to stop FGM and end the pain, inconvenience, dehumanization and inhuman girls under 18yearsold are forcefully made to undergo.
