MP still waiting for Government response over constituent in FGM case

A domestic abuse victim whose daughter faces genital mutilation if deported has yet to receive answers from the UK Government, MPs have heard.

The SNP’s Hannah Bardell raised the case of Lola Ilesanmi at Prime Minister’s Questions last week, urging Theresa May and Home Secretary Amber Rudd (pictured) to halt the family’s deportation to Nigeria to protect the three-year-old girl from harm.

But Ms Bardell told the Commons she has received no reply to her pleas for help for her Livingston constituent, as she pressed Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson to intervene.

MPs have previously heard about abuse Ms Ilesanmi suffered at the hands of her estranged husband, including her face being “smashed with an iPad”, for refusing the genital mutilation of her daughter.

Speaking in the Commons on Tuesday, Ms Bardell said: “The Foreign Secretary has spoken in the past about his ardent opposition to female genital mutilation.

“Will he therefore have a word with the Home Secretary, who is yet to respond to me and my constituent Lola Ilesanmi – who is threatened with deportation, her child with mutilation, and I raised it with the Prime Minister and I have yet to receive an answer?”

Mr Johnson replied: “I think I heard you raise this before.

“I’m sure the case of your constituent is indeed very troubling and I’m sure the Home Secretary will have picked up what you’ve had to say today.”

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