A senior police officer has appealed for information about the "cutters" who carry out female genital mutilation on young girls, as pressure grows over the failure to bring a single prosecution in the UK for the abuse, which is thought to affect tens of thousands of girls.

Detective Chief Superintendent Keith Niven, who leads the sexual offences, exploitation and child abuse command of the Metropolitan police, said he would use every tactic available to him, including covert methods, to investigate and prosecute individuals who mutilate babies and young girls.

As the Guardian launched its campaign against FGM, Niven also criticised the lack of action being taken by headteachers and the Department for Education (DfE) to address the dangers young girls in their schools were facing.

"We need to break down the taboos and enable young girls to feel able to talk about it at school to their teachers," said Niven. "This is child abuse – it can cause lifelong psychological and physiological damage. There needs to be a consistent approach across schools, within the high-risk areas as a starting point, and that is not happening."

The Guardian's campaign to help end FGM – which calls on the education secretary, Michael Gove, to write to every headteacher in the country to inform their staff and parents about FGM – has become the fastest growing health campaign to be hosted on the website Change.org, after launching on Wednesday.

By mid-morning on Thursday – the UN's FGM zero tolerance day – the petition had more than 30,000 signatures and was gathering the momentum to spark political movement. In comparison Caroline Criado-Perez's successful campaign to keep a women on a Bank of England banknote gained 35,000 signatures. Another 140 a minute – more than two a second – were signing the FGM petition. "The Guardian campaign is absolutely flying. The numbers are off the scale," said John Coventry, from Change.org. "The people who are signing this campaign are obviously very committed and they want to see action."

Niven called for fresh intelligence on people operating as cutters as he revealed that the lack of victims coming forward to police with information about the abuse they had suffered was a major obstacle to bringing a prosecution. Many young women, he said, were extremely reluctant to provide information that could lead to the prosecution of their parents or other relatives.

"I do understand why young girls who have been subjected to this may be reticent about coming forward and giving evidence," he said. "We embrace anyone that wants to come forward and talk to the police and we will support them – we have got the resources and the officers trained to deal with this. But we are not getting the cases coming through."

FGM has been illegal in England and Wales since 1985, with the law amended in 2003 to criminalise the taking of young girls abroad for the practice. More than 66,000 women in England and Wales have undergone FGM and more than 24,000 girls under the age of 15 are at risk, according to a recent report.

But since 2009 the Metropolitan police has had only 195 referrals about FGM, most of which involved tiny snippets of information or suspicion, rather than direct contact from victims, and there have been no prosecutions in connection with FGM. "I want people who have information about the cutters to come forward," he said. "I can use tried and tested methods and tactics and resources to take a close look at them and gather evidence against individuals so I don't need to rely upon victims coming forward.

"That is the position I want to get to. But to get there I need a starting point, I need information, I need people to tell me who it is that is committing these crimes.

"They know that they are breaking the law, and it is done for financial gain, and we need that extra piece of information to pursue them. I want to take the pressure off the victims and look at potentially what would be a victimless prosecution. That would send a really strong message."

In an attempt to address the reluctance of victims to contact the police, Niven has brought in the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) to act as a neutral intermediary for victims to contact via a 24-hour helpline (0800 028 3550).

The strongest chance of a criminal case going to trial fell away last year when the alleged victim, who had been subjected to FGM in Kenya in 2006, told detectives she could no longer support the prosecution. The authorities could have forced her to give evidence, but police and prosecutors rejected the idea, as they did not want to put such a vulnerable witness through the ordeal.

Niven has hopes that with the right weight of evidence, he could pursue a victimless prosecution against cutters in this country. Police are under pressure as the home affairs select committee prepares to mount an inquiry into the failure to prosecute anyone for FGM.

The World Health Organisation describes FGM as "procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons". It is usually carried out on girls between infancy and 15, with the majority of cases taking place between the ages of five and eight.

Many young girls are taken out of the country during the summer holidays for the practice to be performed abroad, and Niven believes schools could do more to protect them.

He told the Guardian he had repeatedly called for a high-profile public health campaign targeted at young girls at risk, to be used from primary upwards, but was still waiting for educators to act.

"I would like to get a DVD put into the social education classes of all schools in the at-risk areas which explores what FGM is, contains the NSPCC helpline and gives people some support and options about how they can disclose what has happened," he said. "That is my vision. I have raised it in all areas I can, at very high levels, but it has not happened."

The government says teachers have a key role in spotting children who may be at risk of or who have undergone genital cutting, and last year Ofsted said it would be testing the alertness of schools to FGM as part of its inspection regime.

But an NSPCC report revealed shocking levels of ignorance among teachers in England and Wales, with 83% saying they had not had child protection training in this area. The poll of 1,000 teachers also suggested that 68% were unaware of government guidance about safeguarding policies regarding FGM, with one in six teachers saying they did not know that it was illegal in the UK. The same proportion did not see it as child abuse.

The chance of a prosecution in the near future rests upon eight cases being considered by the CPS. The police are also investigating a London-based doctor, Sureshkumar Pandya, who is alleged to have performed a labia reduction on a patient in March 2012. He was reported to the General Medical Council after the patient was examined by another doctor.

Instances of FGM in the UK tend to occur in areas with large populations of FGM-practising communities, including from parts of Africa, Asia and the Middle East; these areas include London, Cardiff, Manchester, Sheffield, Northampton, Birmingham, Oxford, Crawley, Reading, Slough and Milton Keynes.

A spokesman for the DfE, responding to Niven's comments, said: "Female genital mutilation is unacceptable; it is child abuse and a criminal offence. The government's new action plan for tackling violence against women and girls has a renewed focus on protecting potential victims and sends a strong message that FGM will not be tolerated.

"Schools play an important role in raising pupils' awareness of this issue. We expect them to refer cases of concern to the relevant agencies in the same way as they would for any type of abuse."

Anyone who is worried that a child may be or has been a victim of FGM can contact 0800 028 3550 for information and support.