The right-wing VVD and the Socialist Party have drawn up draft legislation that would make it a criminal offence to call for or support female genital mutilation, following claims this has been happening in the Netherlands.

Some 4,200 girls in the Netherlands are at risk of having their genitals mutilated in the coming years, according to experts at the Pharos institute. The practice is illegal in the Netherlands but often takes place in secret or in the victim’s parents’ country of origin while on holiday, Pharos says.

By making calls for female genital mutilation a criminal offence, the parties hope to do more to stamp out the practice.

“It is a gruesome form of mutilation and needs to be tackled,” said VVD member of parliament Bente Becker. “Glorifying it, or expressing approval at schools, in teaching materials or on social media, needs to be a criminal offence.”

At present, calling for female genital mutilation falls under freedom of religion and freedom of speech protection. Last December, the Council of State ruled that The Hague’s mayor could not take action against an imam who called for girls to undergo the procedure because no laws had been broken.

Although the practice itself has been banned in the Netherlands for 10 years, there have been no successful prosecutions.

Around 80% of women in the Netherlands known to have undergone female genital mutilation come from Somalia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan and the Kurdish autonomous region in Iraq.