UKIP wants mandatory FGM checks on young girls & burka ban

UKIP announced plans for a policy of mandatory annual medical checks for schoolgirls in “at-risk minority” groups for Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and prosecutions for parents of anyone who has undergone the procedure.

As part of its “integration agenda,” UKIP announced mandatory annual FGM checks for girls in schools. It wants to “implement school-based medical checks on girls at high risk of suffering FGM. These should take place annually and whenever they return from trips overseas.”

The party is also calling for parents of girls who are subjected to FGM, which is illegal in Britain, to face prosecution.

It pledges to “make failure to report instances of FGM by someone who has knowledge that it has taken place a criminal offence itself” and for the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to “operate under a presumption of prosecution any parents whose daughter has undergone FGM.”

The announcement comes as the party pledged to ban Islamic face coverings in public places in Britain, saying they are a “deliberate barrier to integration and, in many contexts, a security risk too.”

UKIP also wants Sharia law to be banned, and for a legal commission to be created to work to disband Sharia courts. It says Sharia law is “identified as a rival legal system which undermines women’s rights.”

The party has announced that any rape or grooming offense where the perpetrator is a different race should be an “aggravating factor” and treated as a hate crime to ensure longer prison sentences.

UKIP’s education spokesperson, David Kurten, said until there was “better integration” in Britain, “there should be a moratorium on new Islamic schools.” He also called for the immediate closure of schools where there is “evidence of Islamist ideology being taught or imposed on children.”

The proposals still need to be approved by the party’s “policy scrutiny team” and may not make it into UKIP’s official general election manifesto.