Human rights day

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Dear Mr Dobson,

I am writing to you today to remind you that on Human Rights Day 21st of March an unknown number of British baby boys and male children will have their normal healthy genitals cut without their informed consent, forever altering and potentially diminishing their lives.
The anachronistic practice of male circumcision breaches the human rights of males in several respects.

Article 2 – Right to Life
Recently baby Goodluck Caubergs bled to death after a negligently performed circumcision. The nurse who circumcised him was not tried on human rights grounds but was found guilty of  Goodluck’s manslaughter following a wholly unnecessary operation.

Article 3 – Prohibition of Torture
There is good evidence that stress hormone levels in children being circumcised reach levels equal to the levels seen in victims of torture.

Article 8 – Right to Respect for Private and Family Life
It is difficult to see how a practice that casually discards a section of a boy’s private parts without his consent and without a medical imperative can be respectful of that boy’s private life.

Article 9 – Freedom of Thought Conscience and Religion
This right is a qualified right in that one person’s right cannot be used to override another person’s right to freedom of religion; an adult may not override a child’s right, no matter that they are that child’s parent. What if the child being circumcised chooses, when they are capable, a religion such as Sikhism? A central tenet of Sikhs is the perfection of the body that God made.

Please take note of Human Rights Day and let us try to make the world and this country in particular a safer place for children to grow up in. As the Member of Parliament for Holborn and St Pancras I expect that you consider it your obligation to represent the rights of all constituents including those not yet able to vote nor indeed able to give their consent to genital modification.

Yours sincerely

Richard Duncker

No prosecutions

No one has ever been prosecuted under the FGM legislation.
Almost all cultures that practice the genital cutting of children cut both sexes. Female circumcision will continue as long as society tolerates male circumcision.

Female circumcision and male circumcision are always compared selectively. The very worst form of female circumcision is selected and contrasted with “normal” male circumcision. Females are protected by law from even a ritual pinprick that removes no tissue and quite right too. Men Do Complain believes it is right to protect females and all children from any unnecessary interference. Sadly the argument that all children should be treated equally works both ways, those in favour of cutting females say, with some justification, that if you tolerate the cutting of  boys then you should tolerate the cutting of girls.

There are of course differences between male and female circumcision, although the tissues most commonly excised are similar in structure and function. The fixation on the differences between male and female circumcision loses sight of the greatest similarity, which is that all non-therapeutic genital cutting is an assault if there is no valid consent to the procedure. No one would argue that a black eye and a cut lip are the same; yet all would agree that if an adult hit a child in the face and left an injury then it was the blow that defined the offence not the nature of the resulting injury.

In an age where children’s rights are increasingly recognised, equal opportunities promoted, and human rights incorporated into our legislation it is difficult to see the non-therapeutic cutting of children’s genitals as anything other than a crime. All children should be protected from the inappropriate activities of adults.

 

MDC supporters took the message that no children should be discriminated against to the Department of Health. Whitehall was also the venue for another demonstration which provided a stream of people on a very cold afternoon. Ninety seven leaflets were handed out and some new friends were found among the passers by.  The young man in the picture below certainly noticed our presence and asked if he could be photographed with Richard in the bloody overalls. The general public seems to get our message it is the politicians and institutions that are so very resistant to a change that is long overdue.

Secular Europe march London Sept. 2012

Men Do Complain is a secular organisation. We do not make policy based on faith, we make policy based on evidence. Most of the evidence is peer reviewed, some is anecdotal and some policy is based on secular law, The Human Rights Act 1998 for example.

Taking faith out of policy making is a logical step if you believe that all people are equal regardless of race, religion, culture, sexual orientation, anatomical difference or any other category that can be used by one group to denigrate another group.

Men Do Complain was delighted to march with friends from other organisations with a secular basis; the Secular Medical Forum working for faith free medical practice and Survivors Voice Europe representing children sexually abused by clerics. Many thanks to the organisers the Secular Europe Campaign.

Bournemouth vigil

25th June 2012. Men Do Complain staged its annual vigil to remind the doctors attending the British Medical Association’s Annual Representative’s Meeting (doctors’ trade union) that cutting the genitals of healthy boys who cannot give personal informed consent is profoundly unethical.

Our mission was to support the doctors from the Secular Medical Forum who proposed motion 336; the motion called on the B.M.A. to debate the ethical, medical and financial issues surrounding the circumcision of non-consenting males.

Motion 336 proposed

“That this meeting:

(i) Demands that child safeguarding procedures must apply to all children without gender discrimination and irrespective of the beliefs or social status of the child’s parents or guardians;

(ii) Notes the increasing evidence of significant complications from childhood male circumcision, including meatal stenosis, bleeding, infection, scarring and adult psychosexual dysfunction;

(iii) Endorses the May 2010 position statement of the Royal Dutch Medical Association (KNMG) which called non-therapeutic circumcision of male minors a violation of children’s rights to autonomy and physical integrity;

(iv) Notes  the GMC guidance in respect of the responsibilities of registered medical practitioners in the matter of female genital mutilation (FGM) (0-18 years: Guidance for all doctors; end notes reference 15) – and as set down in the 2003 FGM legislation;

(v) Insists on equality between GMC policies for doctors concerning females and males in respect of non-therapeutic genital surgery.

(vi) Calls for no further commissioning or funding of non-therapeutic circumcision of male minors in the NHS;”

Disappointingly motion 336 was not chosen to be debated. The reception that we received  in 2011 at the Cardiff meeting was slightly confrontational; this year those opposed only showed us the cold shoulder and there were more delegates supportive to our cause than last year. Thank you to all who turned up and to all who supported us behind the scenes.