Parliament will rush through measures to protect vulnerable girls from being taken abroad to undergo the barbaric practice known as Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).
The new laws are expected to be swiftly passed through Parliament ahead of schools breaking up for the summer holidays next month. The legislation has been fast tracked amid fears that numbers of FGM victims could soar during the school summer holidays.
The new measures will mean that direct court orders can be applied to individuals suspected of trying to take someone abroad to undergo FGM. Powers will be given to local authorities, social workers and the police to monitor and apply the orders. Suspected parties will have their passports surrendered along with other travel documents with immediate effect.
The campaigning group Equality Now estimates that some 137,000 women and girls living in England and Wales have been affected by FGM. And The World Health Organisation estimates that globally 100-140 million women have undergone some form of FGM.
This is an abhorrent practice and something that should be a priority for the government to tackle. Preventing it is crucial but on-going support for victims is also essential. You can read the story in full here.
A pro- Europe Labour movement was launched last week by Pat Glass, Labour MP for North West Durham, and Phil Wilson, MP for Sedgefield. Almost 70 MPs joined the group which aims to give the yes campaign a distinctive left wing voice.
The group, which will be known as Labour Yes, will meet for the first time this coming Tuesday. The Co-chair Pat Glass said that it was important that Labour MPs make a pro-European case. However, Labour will also be part of the cross party pro campaign.
More on Labour Yes can be found here.
Female scientists have hit back after Nobel Prize winning scientist, Sir Tim Hunt, angered them with comments he made about finding them too ‘distracting’ romantically and that they ‘cry’ when criticised.
His foolish remarks resulted in him being forced to resign as an honorary Professor with the UCL (University College London) Faculty of Life Sciences.
He made his remarks at a conference in Seoul where he told the audience: “Let me tell you about my trouble with girls … three things happen when they are in the lab … You fall in love with them, they fall in love with you and when you criticise them, they cry.”
He added that he was “in favour of single-sex labs” but “doesn’t want to stand in the way of women.”
A hash tag #DistractinglySexy has since been launched on twitter and women in STEM (science, tech, engineering and maths) are showing how ridiculous they find his remarks by posing in, and posting images of themselves on Twitter mocking the Nobel Prize winner for his remarks. You can view some here.
