Caretaker medical health minister Pia Dijkstra is planning to experiment with compensating women who have undergone female genital mutilation for the cost of operations if they suffer sexual or psychological complications.

Operations to help women with physical problems after undergoing FGM are currently covered by health insurance, but they are not paid if the woman is only suffering sexual or psychological complaints.

Dijkstra said in answer to MPs questions that money should not be an obstacle to women undergoing a reconstruction procedure, and wants to introduce a trial for one year.

Amsterdam university medical centre is currently carrying out research into the safety and effectiveness of reconstruction surgery on women’s physical and mental health.

Figures from 10 years ago suggest some 30,000 women in the Netherlands have had their genitals mutilated, usually  before they arrived in the country. Somalia and Egypt are among the countries where female circumcision is widely practiced.

The current maximum sentence facing parents who allow their daughters to be mutilated is 12 years.