Excerpt:
A London MP has called for mandatory medical checks on schoolgirls to end Britain's "shameful" failure to secure prosecutions for female genital mutilation.
Diane Abbott said the country needed to face up to the need for "routine medical examinations" as she warned that thousands of girls in the capital remained at risk of mutilation.
She said the approach had been successful in France, where 100 convictions for FGM have been secured since the start of the Eighties, and it was time for similar action to be taken in Britain.