Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Education – in the Senedd at 1:51 pm on 6 February 2019.
Obviously, female genital mutilation is a form of abuse, pure and simple, and it is illegal in our nation. As I said, the Member will have to wait for the individual AOLEs to be published, but we are not going to be in a position where we are listing long, long lists of individual specific subjects. But schools, crucially, have a role to play in supporting, protecting and preventing female genital mutilation, which is why, before summer recess every year, I write to all schools to remind them of their responsibilities and what they can do as summer holidays approach—which is often a danger time for many of our female students, when they may be at risk from this process and procedure—to actually remind them of their responsibilities, what to look out for, danger signs, and crucially what they should do about it if they are worried about any individual child in their school.