Category: News

Home circumcision kills two year old

The story reproduced below was reported by Adam Lusher writing in the Independent on the 26th of December 2018.

A two-year-old Nigerian boy was recovering in hospital in Rome yesterday after an unauthorised home circumcision. His twin died after being subjected to the same procedure.
Francesco Menditto, the public prosecutor in the town of Tivoli, said that a 66-year-old American citizen of Libyan descent, identified only as EF, had been arrested and charged with manslaughter, causing grievous bodily harm and unauthorised exercise of the medical profession.
The attempt to remove the boys’ foreskins was carried out in their home in the neighbouring hilltop town of Monterotondo. Mr Menditto said the cause of death had not yet been established but Italian media attributed it to excessive blood loss or an anaesthetic overdose. Equipment had been seized at the home of the arrested man, indicating a habitual practise of the medical profession for which he was not authorised, the prosecutor said.
The twins were born in Italy in January last year to a Nigerian woman aged 35 who had been granted humanitarian protection by the Italian authorities. She was living in an apartment managed by an Italian charity that helps migrants to integrate into Italian society.
Neighbours said that the woman, who has five more children in Nigeria, was a caring mother who was studying Italian and had worked for a charity organisation in Nigeria. Identified as “Rosemary” by Corriere della Sera, she was said to be Catholic but to have requested the circumcision so that the children would fit in in Nigeria, where Islam is the most widely practised religion. The newspaper said that she had initially asked a local doctor to carry out the operation but had been told it was not possible.

More than 5,000 circumcisions a year are performed in Italy, with more than 35 per cent conducted at home in a clandestine manner, according to Foad Aodi, founder of the Association of Foreign Doctors in Italy.
Dr Aodi said the relatively simple procedure could cost up to €4,000 but only €30 on the black market. “We have been campaigning for years in favour of legality and the right to health and religious respect for everyone and against every form of illegality and do-it- yourself cures,” he said.
Claudio Graziano, a representative of Arci, the charity that was supervising Rosemary’s accommodation, said they had had no idea that she was going to organise a clandestine circumcision. “The mother was integrating well,” he told state television. “We are very upset at what has happened.”
The charity said it would participate as a civil plaintiff in any prosecution of the doctor.
A number of children have died from botched circumcisions recently, most notably in Turin in 2016. There were earlier cases in Bari and Treviso.
Antonella Pancaldi, a councillor responsible for social policy in Monterotondo, said that the town had hosted 160 migrants over the past ten years and had had only one other request for a circumcision. On that occasion the mother had arranged to have the operation performed in safety in the Jewish hospital in Rome, she told a local television station.
“From what we understand, circumcision is widespread in all of Africa, independently of the religion to which people belong. It’s a practice rooted in tradition, rather than religion,” she said. “We have to take account of the fact that many people feel this need.”
The problem, Ms Pancalli said, was the cost of the operation in Italy for people with scarce resources.

Conference “Healthcare + Secularism” Birmingham 27.10.18

Organised by the National Secular Society the conference will present important information on circumcision among other areas where religious practice overrides appropriate medical treatment. For full conference details, list of confirmed speakers and bookings click the image below.

Paul Mason, Barrister and Children’s Commisioner, Tasmania.

It was with great sadness that we learnt that Paul Mason had died. We offer our deepest sympathy to Paul’s family.

The movement to protect children’s rights in all its aspects, including non-therapeutic male circumcision, has lost a great champion.

Along with a rigorous intellect Paul had a very compassionate nature. He will be sorely missed.

The video below of Paul is from a press conference held in London on 3rd September 2008. It was the first time I saw him in action. All I can say is thank you Paul.

 

Circumcised man’s threat to kill mother – The Times

The story below appeared in The Times 9th June 2018.

A son threatened to slit his mother’s throat because she had him circumcised when he was five, a court was told. H******** had been left traumatised and wanted to know why his parents had agreed to the procedure.

H********, 30, bombarded his mother with more than 100 emails and voicemails between Christmas Day last year and January 5, Kwok Wan, for the prosecution, told Leicester magistrates. In one he said: “I will slit your throats where you stand. Happy new year.”

Mr Wan added that H******** went to his mother’s house on New Year’s Eve and threw paint over the front of the house and on the path.

Kim Lee, for the defence, said that only a handful of the messages had been threatening and were “a cry for help”. He added: “He suffers from body dysmorphia and has other mental health issues. There was no intent to cause harm to his parents.”

H********, of Loughborough, was found guilty of aggravated harassment, which he had denied. He admitted criminal damage. He was given an eight-week prison sentence suspended for a year and ordered to attend 20 rehabilitation days.

New section on male circumcision from CRIN

The Child Rights International Network has released the 2018 edition of their report, “What Lies Beneath”. The current version of this report, quoted below, outlines CRIN’s views on non-therapeutic male circumcision:

Male circumcision is an irreversible procedure to surgically remove the foreskin from the human penis. It’s routinely carried out on newborns and adolescents within Jewish and Muslim communities, respectively; on infants out of social convention among nonreligious communities in some Western countries, most notably the United States; and on teenage boys as a rite of passage within some ethnic groups in parts of Africa.

When performed for religious or cultural – not medical – reasons, it flatly designates routine circumcision as medically unjustifiable. In fact, there’s growing support within the medical community against male circumcision as a routine practice since its non-therapeutic basis means it does not comply with medical ethics.

In sum, routine male circumcision involves the removal of healthy tissue for no medical reason from one of the most sensitive body parts, unnecessarily exposing a child to the risks of surgery, and usually at an age when they lack the capacity to consent or refuse consent. Recorded complications include bleeding, panic attacks, infection, disfigurement, necrosis and amputation, and even death.

Exposing a child to such risks without curative or rehabilitative justification goes against medical ethics, as well as parental responsibilities to protect a child from injury and harm.

Advocates say the decision to circumcise should not rest with anyone except a boy himself when he’s old enough to give his free and informed consent, or refuse it.