2022/24919 - FGM stats over the lockdown period

REQUEST

 I am researching Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and contacting every police force in the UK to ask the following question.

Please can you supply me data on how many cases of FGM were reported to your police force each month between March 2020 and today's date? Ideally, I'd like this data stratified, by age of alleged victim please and if you have the data by type.

RESPONSE

Between March 2020 and February 2022 there were two cases of FGM recorded. Due to low numbers recorded it is not possible to provide any further details, as this could potentially identify victims along with other information already available in the public domain.  Therefore, the following exemption has been applied.

Section 40(5) – Personal Information

The exemption applicable to the information you have requested for this question can be found at Section 40(5) – Personal Information, of the Act and this refusal notice is issued under Section 17.

Disclosure under Freedom of Information is a release of information to the world in general and not an individual applicant. Therefore, simply confirming or not that such information were held would disclose personal information about individuals.

As such, any disclosure that identifies an individual or identifies that an individual has had contact with Gwent Police or not is exempt. Personal data is defined under Section 10 of the Data Protection Act 2018 as:

Data which relate to a living individual who can be identified-

(a) from those data, or

(b) from those data and other information, which is in the possession of, or is likely to come into the possession of, the data controller, and includes any expression of opinion about the individual and any indication of the intentions of the data controller or any other person in respect of the individual. “

In accordance with the Act, this represents a Refusal Notice for this part of your request. No inference can be taken from this refusal that the information you have requested does or does not exist.

Under Section 16 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, we have a duty to assist you where possible. Therefore, to establish if personal data is being processed by Gwent Police, individuals are required to make application under section 7 of the Data Protection Act 1998, by means of submitting a completed Data Protection Subject Access form.