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.

28 Too Many

MDC is proud to support all organisations that are working to promote the rights of children and 28 Too Many works to protect girls in 28 countries from female circumcision.

Whatever the differences or similarities between male and female circumcision the same right to genital autonomy is breached by the genital modification of any child without medical necessity or the person’s consent, see the recent Helsinki Declaration of the Right to Genital Autonomy.

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.

How many men do complain?

Three questions that are apparently difficult to answer. Very careful study might answer the first question. Research over time will answer the other two questions. Few circumcisions are recorded in medical notes and very few men are followed up into adult life, to see how or if circumcision has affected them.

Physical harm
That circumcision is physically damaging is now beyond doubt. Embryology shows us that the same tissue that becomes the foreskin in males develops into the clitoris in females. The anatomical work of Taylor, Lockwood and Taylor tells us that the foreskin is composed of highly specialised cells with neurological and immunological functions. The work of Sorrells and his team demonstrates that circumcision removes the parts of the penis that are most sensitive to fine touch pressure. So circumcision is only beneficial when it treats a specific and relatively severe problem.

No benefits to children
There is not a single medical association in the world that recommends the routine circumcision of children since there is no benefit to children. A child’s foreskin is physiologically phimotic, not retractable, it should be cleaned like a finger, rinsed on the outside and left alone to develop and separate from the glans naturally. When the young man has gone through puberty he may, rarely, be left with a phimotic, non retractable, foreskin but this can almost invariably be treated conservatively, without circumcision. Education and safe sex in later life will provide more than adequate protection from any of the other problems circumcision is claimed to prevent.

Psychological harm
The silence of men is mistaken for satisfaction. This site and others are collecting data that is likely to reveal that men are psychologically harmed by non-therapeutic circumcision.
One example of the psychological damage unnecessary circumcision can cause is alexithymia; a disorder where people have difficulty identifying and expressing their emotions [13]. Those affected become less able to empathize with others. Sufferers of severe alexithymia are so removed from their feelings that they view themselves as being robots. If acquired at an early age, such as from infant circumcision, alexithymia might limit access to language and impede the socialization process that begins early in life.

Cosmetic outcome
A paper titled “The long term outcome of severe hypospadias“[5] may seem unrelated but this paper is about the surgical repair of an abnormality seen at birth when the tube that should close to convey urine along the penis does not close completely leaving an opening on the underside of the shaft of the penis, through which urine can pass. The repair of the abnormality if it is severe often involves the use of the foreskin as replacement tissue. This long term follow up study asked the men for their views on the cosmetic outcome of the surgery and got the following response.

“Of those who consider their penile appearance to be ‘abnormal’, this is owing to the absence of foreskin in four cases”

The total number of men whose foreskins were used to effect the repair was 27, a small sample size, fortunately hypospadias is a rare condition,  4 men out of 27 works out at 14.8%. Fifteen percent of all the men who have been circumcised and therefore have had their foreskins removed may well feel that the appearance of their penis is “abnormal”. The resulting calculation works out as a very big number that represents a lot of men unhappy with the cosmetic outcome, never mind any other problems.

Follow up
So if a long term follow up approach was used on the male population who have been subjected to non-therapeutic excision of their foreskins what would be the results?  Sadly this work has never been done. Perhaps no one wants to know the answer.

Dear Chancellor Merkel…

On the 21st of July Men Do Complain took the following letter to the German Embassy in Belgrave Square, London.

Dear Chancellor Merkel,

We represent the voices that you may not have heard concerning the ruling of the Cologne Court which decided that religious male circumcision “violated the child’s rights” and caused “bodily harm”.

We ask that you support the Cologne ruling [11] and resist calls for it to be overturned or sidestepped. We applaud the courage of the court in making this judgment and are delighted to see that other countries such as Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands and possibly Ireland, are looking to follow Germany’s example.

The U.K. High Court when asked to give permission for a child to be circumcised for religious reasons decided that the child’s right to choose his or her own religion, when competent to do so, outweighs the parents’ rights to manifest their religion.

The point was clarified by Mr. Justice Munby when considering the point under the European Convention of Human Rights in his judgment in the case of “S”:

“….however much respect one pays to religion or to any particular religion, and whatever the religion and the nature of the religious beliefs in issue in the particular case, a parental view based on religious belief, however profound, can never be determinative when it comes to considering what is to be done in relation to a child. After all, although Article 9 of the Convention guarantees “the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion”, the right to “manifest” one’s religion, whether in worship, teaching, practice or observance, is subject to such limitations, prescribed by law, as are “necessary in a democratic society … for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.” The mother’s rights under Article 9, in other words, are qualified by S’s rights…”
( [2005] EWHC 1490 (Fam) 11th July 2005 )

That male circumcision causes harm is beyond doubt. Unrebutted peer reviewed studies have shown that the male foreskin is an essential component of a complete sex life for both men and women.

Please listen to our voice and keep in mind this quote:

“Parents may be free to become martyrs themselves. But it does not follow that they are free in identical circumstances to make martyrs of their children before they have reached the age of full and legal discretion when they can make choices for themselves.”
(Rutledge J in the United States Supreme Court in Prince v Massachusetts (1944) 321 US 158 at p 170: )

The Cologne Court has given confidence to the children harmed by the practice of forced male circumcision who are now men, to raise their voices without fear of ridicule about a subject which has been ignored for far too long. Please do not be afraid to offer protection to children who cannot resist the irreversible actions of adults.
Yours etc.

 

Thank you
Men Do Complain is deeply grateful to all those who came to show their support for the Cologne ruling and to promote the right of all children to grow up free of any genital modification without an absolute medical imperative.