By Rosie Wilson

A report from the home affairs select committee has suggested that the recent FGM laws should be extended to outlaw ‘designer vagina’ surgery, which is purely an aesthetic procedure.

Although the 2003 Female Genital Mutilation Act currently doesn’t not contain any exemption for plastic surgery, the report has called for more clarity on the point. The report further details that cases of FGM are still very high, using an example of Heartlands Hospital in Birmingham, where 1,500 cases of FGM have been reported over the past five years. “There seems to be a chasm between the amount of reported cases and the lack of prosecutions,” the report says. “Someone, somewhere is not doing their job effectively.”

Keith Vaz, the chairman of the select committee, said:

“We cannot tell communities in Sierra Leone and Somalia to stop a practice which is freely permitted on Harley Street.”