The BBC’s “Casualty” (13/04/2013) tackled the subject of female circumcision. The motives of the programme makers were laudable. Men Do Complain is in favour of the cessation of forced or coerced genital cutting of children or any other vulnerable group. The encouraging thing about this programme is that the silence is broken about a subject that has been in the past largely ignored.
The question is when will the BBC and other organisations pluck up the courage to recognise that boys are also admitted to casualty departments after circumcision? The writers of “Casualty” should have no difficulty in finding research material on which to base such a story. Birmingham hospitals have revealed, following a freedom of information request, that two boys a week are being admitted as casualties and one boy a month comes close to death after male circumcision.
Society through the media should be helped to understand that non-therapeutic genital modification harms all children subjected to such treatment. All mutilated children have to live with the frustration of knowing that their sexual health has been compromised and all face similar risks following any unnecessary cut through the full thickness of the skin. All children should be afforded equal protection from what is essentially an assault.
How many people have been prosecuted in the UK? None. In France it’s 28 (I bellieve) The UK authorities have got to stop tiptoeing around this issue and being afraid of tackling ‘religious sensitivities’. That’s why we have to face up to Jewish and Muslim groups who justify cutting little boys gentials ‘because it’s a tradition’