2011-06-13

Religious groups say proposed circumcision ban is attack on religious freedom, but ignore a child's right to be free from religion



Globe and Mail   -  Canada     June 10, 2011

Russell Crowe launches Twitter tirade: Circumcision is ‘barbaric’

DAVE MCGINN


Oscar-winning actor Russell Crowe is not a fan of circumcision.

“Circumcision is barbaric and stupid. Who are you to correct nature?” Crowe tweeted on Thursday. “Is it real that God requires a donation of foreskin? Babies are perfect.”

Crowe went on the tirade after one of his Twitter followers asked whether he should get his son circumcised.

Then, Crowe appealed to his Jewish friends, including the director Eli Roth, to end the traditional practice of circumcising children.

“I love my Jewish friends, I love the apples and the honey and the funny little hats, but stop cutting your babies,” he wrote. “I will always stand for the perfection of babies. I will always believe in God, not man’s interpretation of what God requires,” he added. “Last of it, if you feel it is your right to cut things off your babies please unfollow and f--k off; I’ll take attentive parenting over barbarism.”

Not surprisingly, the messages have landed Crowe in hot water. His tweets have been deleted, and early Friday morning the actor apologized to anyone he may have offended.

“I have a deep and abiding love for all people of all nationalities. I’m very sorry that I have said things on here that have caused distress. My personal believes aside I realize that some will interpret this debate as me mocking the rituals and traditions of others. I am very sorry.”

Roth has been defending Crowe on his Twitter feed since the scandal broke, saying it was just a joke and that Crowe is “NOT antisemitic.”

This article was found at:


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CNN   June 10, 2011

San Francisco's proposed circumcision ban galvanizes religious opposition

By Dan Gilgoff, CNN.com Religion Editor


(CNN) - The nation’s largest evangelical Christian umbrella group has come out against San Francisco’s proposed circumcision ban, evidence that the voter initiative is beginning to galvanize national religious opposition.

Thursday’s announcement from the National Association of Evangelicals was noteworthy because unlike Jews and Muslims, Christians are not religiously mandated to practice circumcision.

“Jews, Muslims, and Christians all trace our spiritual heritage back to Abraham. Biblical circumcision begins with Abraham,” said National Association of Evangelicals president Leith Anderson. “No American government should restrict this historic tradition. Essential religious liberties are at stake."

"The proposed ban violates the First Amendment’s guarantee to exercise one’s religious beliefs," Anderson said in a statement.

How much of a national issue the ban becomes is yet to be seen. An effort to put a circumcision ban on the ballot in Santa Monica, California was abandoned last week.

Many Jewish and Muslim groups have come out against San Francisco’s proposed ban on the procedure that removes the foreskins of infant boys.

Jewish groups have suggested anti-Semitic motives behind the ban. Here’s Nancy J. Appel, associate regional director for the Anti-Defamation League:


This is a sensitive, serious issue where good people can disagree and which the Jewish community feels is an assault on its values and traditions going back thousands of years and centered in the Hebrew Bible.

And here’s influential Los Angeles Rabbi David Wolpe:


Some involved are simply opposed to religion (there are after all some misguided Jews arguing for the ban as well), some wish to target both Muslims and Jews. But can anyone doubt that there are anti-circumcision advocates who seize on this as a chance to hurt Jews and the Jewish tradition?

Many Jewish groups, including the Anti-Defamation League, alleged that a comic book called “Foreskin Man,” created by the proposed San Francisco ban’s author,draws on centuries-old stereotypes about Jews. [see related articles links below]

Just as the National Association of Evangelicals did Thursday, some Muslim groups have called the ban an attack on religious freedom:


A ban that specifically targets a religious practice of Muslims and that has been proven to be medically beneficial is a violation of First Amendment rights that guarantees all Americans the right to religious freedom.

The proposed ban would make it "unlawful to circumcise, excise, cut, or mutilate the whole or any part of the foreskin, testicles, or penis" of anyone 17 or younger in San Francisco.

Violators could be jailed for a year or fined up to $1,000.

The group that drafted the ban's language says the procedure has adverse physical and psychological effects and likens it to female genital mutilation, a claim that doctors generally reject.

In November 2010, CNN reported that medical evidence had shown mixed risks and benefits of circumcision:


Apart from the San Francisco proposal, circumcisions are under scientific scrutiny.
While widespread in the United States, circumcision rates could be falling, according to recent surveys. About 65 percent of American male infants born in hospitals were circumcised in 1999, according to latest data available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
While nationally the circumcision rate has remained steady, the most dramatic decline occurred in the West, where it fell from 64 percent in 1974 to 37 percent in 1999.
Earlier this year, there were unconfirmed estimates that the circumcision rate had fallen to fewer than half for boys born in U.S. hospitals, The New York Times reported last summer, citing a federal report at the International AIDS Conference.
The American Academy of Pediatrics task force on circumcision has been reviewing recent research before it issues an official new position on the issue, probably next year, one panel member said.
"In the past, we've said newborn circumcision has benefits and risks," Dr. Douglas Diekema, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington, told CNN last year. "Given the fact that neither the risks nor benefits are particularly compelling, this is a decision to be made by parents."

This article was found at:


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TIME  -  June 13, 2011

San Francisco's Circumcision Ban: An Attack on Religious Freedom?

By Adam Cohen



In the 1960s and '70s, the San Francisco Bay Area was where the counterculture really started — the Free Speech Movement in Berkeley, the Summer of Love in Haight-Ashbury, gay rights in the Castro. Today, the Bay Area is challenging the larger culture in a new and controversial way: there will be a referendum on the ballot in November that would make it the first major city in the U.S. to outlaw circumcision.

The San Francisco debate over circumcision initially centered on the value of the procedure itself — opponents call it barbaric, supporters point to its long tradition and say it prevents disease. But increasingly the debate is becoming one about religion, in which critics accuse backers of the referendum of bigotry and insist a ban would violate the First Amendment's religious freedoms.

There is plenty of reason to oppose the ban on its own merits. There is no need for a law: if people do not believe in circumcision, they should not have it done to themselves or their children. And even if there were to be a circumcision ban, this one is poorly constructed because of the well-founded religious objections that are being raised.

The anticircumcision debate began in April when a group of self-proclaimed "intactivists" — people who believe strongly that infant boys have a right to keep their foreskins intact — submitted enough signatures to put a circumcision ban on the ballot. The intactivists have taken up the language of international human rights: they are fighting, they say, for "genital autonomy" and "male-genital-integrity rights." Framed this way, it seemed like an appropriately earnest next step for a city that last year banned any kind of Happy Meal that paired toy giveaways with fast food.

The intactivists argue that circumcision needlessly inflicts pain on newborns, and they compare it to female genital mutilation — which is, in fact, a far more serious procedure. (Female genital mutilation can produce severe harm, including infertility and an increased risk of newborn deaths.)

Supporters of circumcision argue that there is a long tradition behind it, both religious and nonreligious, and that the pain involved is fleeting. They also say circumcision has proven health benefits. Removal of the foreskin has been found to help prevent the spread of HIV and other infections. In clinical trials in Africa, the incidence of HIV infection was 60% lower in circumcised men. The World Health Organization has said circumcision is an important component in fighting HIV infection.

Still, the drafters of the San Francisco referendum could have avoided the religious issue — and kept the focus on the harms and benefits of circumcision — if they had included an exception for circumcisions done for religious reasons. Jews, whose religious traditions require male children to be circumcised eight days after birth, and Muslims, who also practice circumcision, are a small part of the city's population.

Instead, the referendum expressly states that the ban would apply equally to religious circumcisions. If it passes, Jewish parents in San Francisco who hold a traditional bris, or circumcision ritual, could be sentenced to a year in jail.

This strict policy certainly seems insensitive. Jews who circumcise their sons trace the tradition back thousands of years. It is a sign, they believe, of a covenant with God, and an affirmation that the Jewish people will survive. There are accounts of circumcisions performed in the direst of circumstances, including in concentration camps. The intactivists aren't swayed by such arguments and insist it's gone on long enough.

Claims of insensitivity, however, have recently turned into charges of outright anti-Semitism. One of the referendum's key supporters has written a comic book, Foreskin Man, that portrays a blond, Aryan-looking superhero doing battle with "Monster Mohel." (Mohels are people trained to perform ritual Jewish circumcisions.) The bearded, prayer-shawl-wearing mohel leers manically at defenseless infants. As one rabbi blogger put it, "Hey San Francisco, 1930's Germany Called — They Want Their Anti-Semitic Propaganda Back!"

Jews and Muslims are not the only religious groups opposing the ban. The National Association of Evangelicals, which represents 45,000 churches, declared last week that while their faith neither requires nor forbids circumcision, "Jews, Muslims and Christians all trace our spiritual heritage back to Abraham. Circumcision begins with Abraham. No American government should restrict this historic tradition."

If the referendum passes, it is unclear whether it would survive a constitutional challenge. The First Amendment protects people against laws that unduly interfere with their religious rituals. The question is, How would the courts see this particular interference? In 1972, the Supreme Court upheld the right of Amish parents to not send their children to school past the eighth grade. Yet more recently, it held that the "free exercise" clause does not protect Native Americans who want to engage in ritual use of peyote, an illegal drug. Under the logic of the peyote case, the ban could well survive. The ban could also be challenged under California's state constitution, which might contain broader religious protections than the U.S. Constitution.

On one level, the stakes in the San Francisco vote are small. If the referendum passes, parents can easily take their children out of the city to be circumcised. The danger, though, is that intactivism could spread — and that more localities, and eventually states, will enact bans.

On the other hand, the intactivist movement could come to a quick end. Last week, an activist who had been collecting signatures to put a similar referendum on the ballot in Santa Monica, Calif., announced that she was halting her effort because, she said, a cause that was not intended to be about religion had become a religious issue.

Cohen, a former TIME writer and a former member of the New York Times editorial board, is a lawyer who teaches at Yale Law School. Case Study, his legal column for TIME.com, appears every Monday.

This article was found at:



RELATED ARTICLES ON THIS BLOG



CIRCUMCISION OF BOYS



Initiative to ban male circumcision in San Francisco gets enough signatures for November ballot



Circumcising children without their consent violates their human rights and religious freedom


Jewish groups vow to fight voter initiative that would make male circumcision illegal in San Francisco


Is male circumcision a violation of children's rights or a procedure that prevents disease and saves lives?


Mutilating babies through circumcision is cruel, barbaric medical and religious child abuse


Vancouver man guilty of criminal negligence for botched circumcision of son gets one year in jail


Religiously deluded father guilty of negligence causing bodily harm for botched home-circumcision of 4-year-old son


Man accused of circumcising own children


Jury can't decide whether Mormon polygamist is guilty of child abuse for circumcising two sons at home with box cutter


Dad never charged in botched home circumcision of 3-month old in 2008 now charged with murdering 2nd son 


CIRCUMCISION OF GIRLS


One of the most common human rights abuses is the grotesque sexual torture of girls for religion and tradition



Canadian mom fighting legal battle to protect 3 daughters from ritual abuse of genital mutilation in Nigeria 


New Canadian immigration guide says multiculturalism no excuse for barbaric practices like honour crimes, forced marriages, genital mutilation 


10 year old Nigerian girl facing deportation from UK attempts suicide to avoid cultists and genital mutilation 


Thousands of British girls tortured by genital mutilation, no perpetrator yet prosecuted despite longstanding laws 


Thousands of girls mutilated in Britain 


Female genital mutilation common place in Kurdish Iraq, motivated mainly by a false religious imperative


A Cutting Tradition


Police plea on genital mutilation


American Academy of Pediatrics issue new policy that essentially promotes female genital mutilation


Follow-Up To: American Academy of Pediatrics issue new policy that essentially promotes female genital mutilatio


Egypt forbids female circumcision


Islamic scholar opposes ban on female circumcision


Witch hunt: Africa's hidden war on women


Famous Egyptian feminist tackles religious fundamentalism to protect women and girls, but gets no honour in her own country 


Author challenges feminists to take on major religions that subjugate and abuse women and children


Posted by Perry Bulwer at 11:07 AM
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10 comments:

  1. San Francisco judge removes circumcision ban from ballot By Madison Park, CNN July 28, 2011

    http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/07/28/circumcision.ban.voting/index.html

    San Francisco residents will not be voting on whether male circumcisions should be banned in the city this fall.A Superior Court judge ordered Thursday that the proposed measure, which had initially made it onto the November 8 city ballot, be removed entirely.

    The measure proposed banning male circumcisions with the penalty of jail time or a $1,000 fine. It would not have granted religious exemptions.
    From the beginning, the controversial ballot measure faced strong resistance from medical, religious and civil liberties groups.

    Superior Court Judge Loretta Giorgi wrote that male circumcision is "a widely practiced medical procedure" and that medical services are left to the regulation of the state, not individual cities. The judge's ruling was hailed by the Jewish Community Relations Council, the Anti-Defamation League and others who had sued to remove the measure from the ballot.

    "While we are confident that the overwhelming majority of San Franciscans would have voted to defeat this extreme measure and are grateful for the outpouring of support from every sector of the community, we believe the right decision was made in the right venue," said Abby Michelson Porth, associate director of Jewish Community Relations Council.

    The plaintiff's efforts were also supported by the American Civil Liberties Union and San Francisco's Medical Society. And even the San Francisco City Attorney's office expressed concerns about whether the measure was constitutional. "It's unusual for a judge to order an initiative off the ballot, but the proposed circumcision ban presented that rare case where the court should block an election on an initiative," said ACLU Northern California staff attorney Margaret Crosby in a released statement. "Not only is the ban patently illegal, it also threatened family privacy and religious freedom. The court's order protects fundamental constitutional values in San Francisco."

    Anti-circumcision advocates who had gathered more than 7,000 signatures to put the measure on the ballot expressed disappointment and said they would appeal. "To remove an initiative before it comes on ballot is an extraordinarily irregular thing to do," said Lloyd Schofield, who is part of a Bay Area advocacy group that says the surgery violates human rights and likens it to "male genital mutilation."
    "To go to this length to have it struck from the ballot is undemocratic," he said. "It's very, very unfortunate."

    ReplyDelete

  2. Circumcision: ‘Mutilation’ or an ‘act of love’?

    http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/08/19/circumcision-mutilation-or-an-act-of-love/

    Rebecca Wald is “100% Jewish.” She celebrates the high holidays, her children attend Hebrew school, she lights candles on the sabbath and she was married to a “100% Jewish” man under a chuppah at a traditional Jewish wedding.

    But unlike most Jews, from the most secular to the ultra-orthodox, she did not circumcise her son. She has never attended — will never attend — a bris, the age-old ceremony where a Jew trained in circumcision (a ‘mohel’) removes the foreskin of an eight-day-old Jewish boy as a sign of his covenant with God.

    “All of the babies I saw growing up — whether cousins or the kids I babysat — were circumcised, and it seemed like that was the way things were supposed to be,” said Ms. Wald, who in December launched Beyond the Bris, a website for Jews who question circumcision. “It took having a son, who is intact, for me to really accept how normal [the uncircumcised penis] is.”

    The South Florida mom is among a growing and vocal minority of Jewish “intactivists” who are challenging the 4,000-year-old ritual because, they say, the procedure inflicts unnecessary pain without any health gains, causes long-term psychological harm, hinders sexual function and pleasure, and strikes at the core of consent. They say there are Jewish women who silently pray they will not bear a son, and that the question, ‘When’s the bris?’ is too presumptive.

    Ms. Wald has not yet told her young son about her decision — she did not want to disclose his age. “Like many Jewish parents of intact sons, we’re not thrilled to publicly discuss the status of our own children’s sex organs,” she said — but said she assumes he will “at some point” learn about it.

    “I imagine he’s going to be thankful that we spared him from this mutilation,” said Ms. Wald, adding that had she been born a boy, her “forward-thinking” parents would not have circumcised her.

    Beyond the Bris has attracted more than 9,000 visitors from 89 countries in the past eight months, chiming into the burgeoning chorus of like-minded Jewish groups such as Jews Against Circumcision, the Jewish Circumcision Resource Center, the Israeli Association Against Genital Mutilation, and the Israel-based group Kahal.

    Intactivist organizations like these have existed for years — one of which was criticized as anti-Semitic for its comic series called Foreskin Man, with characters such as Dr. Mutilator and Monster Mohel. But this latest slew of opponents is unique in that they are led by people whose own religion demands circumcision.
    ...
    “If the Jewish identity comes down to whether or not you have a piece of skin on your penis, then that’s a very sad thing for the Jewish people,” Ms. Wald said, pointing out that a child is Jewish if he or she is born to a Jewish mother.

    “There are no religious consequences of not being circumcised — the boy could still have a bar mitzvah, for example,” echoed Eli Ungar-Sargon, the Jewish filmmaker whose tour starts in Los Angeles in September, with stops in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver in October. “The consequences are imagined and invented. They’re not actual.”

    He said there has been a “cultural shift” since his film launched four years ago, and said the issue “caught fire” with Lloyd Schofield’s attempt to ban circumcision in San Francisco this year — a ban he supports in principle.

    read the rest at the link above

    ReplyDelete

  3. Cut: Slicing Through the Myths of Circumcision (Abridged

    The critically acclaimed documentary on male circumcision by Chicago filmmaker Eli Ungar-Sargon.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx89xECfHG4&feature=player_embedded

    For the unabridged version, please buy the DVD at:

    www.CutTheFilm.com

    ReplyDelete

  4. Brown signs bills on male circumcision and synthetic pot

    The circumcision bill, sponsored by Assemblyman Mike Gatto, aims to 'protect parental rights and liberties.'

    By Anthony York October 2, 2011


    Reporting from Sacramento -- Local governments will be unable to ban male circumcision under a new state law signed by Gov. Jerry Brown.

    The bill, by Assemblyman Mike Gatto (D-Silver Lake), was drafted in response to a proposed San Francisco ballot measure that would have prohibited any foreskin cutting that was not deemed medically necessary in that city. That proposed ordinance was struck from the ballot by a Superior Court judge in June, amid protests from doctors and religious groups. A similar measure was proposed in Santa Monica but was later pulled back by proponents.

    Gatto said his measure, signed Sunday, would "protect parental rights and liberties."

    The bill was one of 44 measures approved by Brown, who has hundreds more on his desk that must be approved or vetoed by Oct. 9. Brown also vetoed four bills Sunday.

    ...

    http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-brown-bills-20111003,0,4385092.story

    ReplyDelete

  5. Controversial Jewish filmmaker brings his documentary "CUT: Slicing Through theMyths of Circumcision" to Vancouver

    October 13, 2011 (FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE) — Jewish filmmaker Eliyahu Ungar-Sargon opposes infant circumcision, and he is taking his hard-hitting documentary "CUT: Slicing Through the Myths of
    Circumcision" on a two-month screening tour to spread his message across North America. On October 24, Vancouver’s Canadian Foreskin
    Awareness Project (in association with The WHOLE Network) will present CUT at a special one-night event at the Roundhouse Community Centre.

    Raised in an Orthodox Jewish household, Ungar-Sargon reached adulthood so disturbed by the ritual of infant circumcision that he ultimately
    dropped out of medical school to make CUT. A powerful and deeply personal film, CUT examines infant male circumcision from religious,
    scientific, and ethical perspectives, exploring the conflict between personal ethics and what many believe is a religious obligation.
    Combining contemporary research with revealing interviews with rabbis, philosophers, scientists, and family members, CUT challenges viewers to confront their biases by asking difficult questions about this ancient and increasingly controversial practice.

    “If you’ve never seen a circumcision and you’re contemplating doing this to another human being, I think you owe it to yourself to watch
    something like this.” - CUT director Eliyahu Ungar-Sargon, SF Weekly, September 22 2011
    http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2011/09/eli_ungar-sargon_cut_circumcision.php

    Canadian Foreskin Awareness Project founder Glen Callender jumped at the chance to screen CUT in Vancouver, because he feels it represents
    an important Jewish perspective that is too often overlooked by the news media. “Journalists typically portray Jews as having a uniformly
    pro-infant circumcision point of view,” states Callender. “CUT reveals that, in reality, many Jews have difficulty reconciling infant
    circumcision with modern values of personal freedom and human rights.”

    “If you really understand what circumcision is, and the issues around it, you are forced to question what kind of Jew you want to be.”
    - Eliyahu Ungar-Sargon, Boulder Weekly, October 13 2011
    http://www.boulderweekly.com/article-6674-film-questions-the-practice-of-circumcision.html

    Joining Ungar-Sargon for a post-screening discussion will be Dr. Paul Tinari, the only Canadian man to date who has received a
    government-funded foreskin restoration. (Additional participants TBC.)

    Preview CUT at http://cutthefilm.com/Cut_Website/The_Film.html

    "CUT: Slicing Through the Myths of Circumcision" will screen in Room B of Roundhouse Community Centre (181 Roundhouse Mews) Monday October 24 at 8:15pm sharp. Director Q&A and discussion will follow. Admission free/by donation. Underground parking available (enter off Drake
    Street).

    Media contacts:

    Director Eliyahu Ungar-Sargon: 312-925-9819 / cutdocumentary@gmail.com

    CAN-FAP founder Glen Callender: 604-628-7012 / GlenCallender@gmail.com

    Canadian Foreskin Awareness Project (CAN-FAP)
    http://can-fap.net

    Cut: Slicing Through the Myths of Circumcision
    http://cutthefilm.com/

    ReplyDelete

  6. Senegal Curbs a Bloody Rite for Girls and Women

    By CELIA W. DUGGER NYT October 15, 2011

    SARE HAROUNA, Senegal — When Aissatou Kande was a little girl, her family followed a tradition considered essential to her suitability to marry. Her clitoris was sliced off with nothing to dull the pain. But on her wedding day, Ms. Kande, her head modestly covered in a plain white shawl, vowed to protect her own daughters from the same ancient custom. Days later, her village declared it would abandon female genital cutting for good.

    Across the continent, an estimated 92 million girls and women have undergone it. But like more than 5,000 other Senegalese villages, Sare Harouna has joined a growing movement to end the practice. The change has not yet reached Ms. Kande’s new home in her husband’s village, but if elders there pressured her to cut the baby girl she is taking into the marriage, she said, “I would resist them.” Her parents back her up.

    “They would never dare do that to my granddaughter, and we would never allow it,” said Ms. Kande’s mother, Marietou Diamank. The movement to end genital cutting is spreading in Senegal at a quickening pace through the very ties of family and ethnicity that used to entrench it. And a practice once seen as an immutable part of a girl’s life in many ethnic groups and African nations is ebbing, though rarely at the pace or with the organized drive found in Senegal.

    The change is happening without the billions of dollars that have poured into other global health priorities throughout the developing world in recent years. Even after campaigning against genital cutting for years, the United Nations has raised less than half the $44 million it set as the goal.

    But here in Senegal, Tostan, a group whose name means “breakthrough” in Wolof, Senegal’s dominant language, has had a major impact with an education program that seeks to build consensus, African-style, on the dangers of the practice, while being careful not to denounce it as barbaric as Western activists have been prone to do. Senegal’s Parliament officially banned the practice over a decade ago, and the government has been very supportive of Tostan’s efforts. “Before you would never even dare to discuss this,” said Mamadou Dia, governor of the Kolda region where this village is located. “It was taboo. Now you have thousands of people coming to abandon it.”

    read the full article at:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/world/africa/movement-to-end-genital-cutting-spreads-in-senegal.html

    ReplyDelete

  7. Cult blamed for growth in female circumcision

    By JOYCE KIMANI, Daily Nation - Kenya
    November 22, 2011

    A religious cult has been blamed for rising cases of female circumcision in Naivasha and its environs.

    Women say although the tradition is almost extinct in the area, the cult is forcing its members to circumcise girls.

    Most take place in Naivasha, Maai Mahiu, Kinangop and Narok.

    It is expected that there will be an increase in female circumcision cases in Narok and the rest of Maasai Land because they hold on strongly to their culture.

    Councillor Esther Njeri has mobilised people in these areas to fight what is considered in the region to be an important and ancient rite of passage from girl to womanhood.

    They will be seeking to arrest traditional circumcisers who force young girls to be circumcised.

    Ms Njeri said that they had started persuading members of the religious organisation to end the circumcisions.

    She said many school-age children had come out and confessed that they were forced.

    “The children call us and tell us when they learn that their parents are planning to circumcise them. So far, we have rescued more than 10 girls from members of the religious sect,” she said.

    The councillor said that most of the girls are circumcised during the December school holidays.

    She said that in some Maasai primary schools, girls are told to write a composition on the dangers of female circumcision, Ms Njeri said.

    Naivasha district commissioner Hellen Kiilu cautioned women who still practise the female cut that they were breaking the law.

    She said a crackdown had been launched to curb the practice.

    http://www.nation.co.ke/News/regional/Cult+blamed+for+growth+in+female+circumcision+/-/1070/1277746/-/j0wtswz/-/

    ReplyDelete

  8. Infant male circumcision is genital mutilation

    by Martin Robbins, The Lay Scientist December 6, 2011

    There are still many people who like to pretend that infant circumcision and genital mutilation are not the same thing. Some of them apparently work at Indonesia's health ministry, the Departemen Kesehatan, who recently issued guidelines for 'safe' female circumcision and wheeled out a spokeswoman to dispense the following words of wisdom: "I would like to stress that female circumcision is not genital mutilation, which is indeed dangerous. They are two things that are very different."

    This nonsense comes from the same ministry that recently pushed the idea that swine flu was an American conspiracy - a sinister plot to achieve something or other through some improbable chain of unlikely events – and it isn't surprising that logic isn't their strong point. And yet the same attitude is widespread in Britain. Thousands of people believe, against all logic and reason, that male infant circumcision is somehow not genital mutilation.

    Mutilation is a loaded term, so let me be clear what I mean. I don't mean that circumcision is mutilation. If consenting adults want to modify their bodies by snipping a bit off here or adding a bit there, then that's their right, and beauty is very much in the eye of the beholder.

    Infant circumcision is a completely different matter. Infant circumcision involves performing surgery without consent to permanently alter an individual's genitals. In many cases this is done without good medical justification, for example to force the infant to conform to the expectations of a particular religion. Just as we call sex without consent 'rape', circumcision without consent or reasonable justification should be called 'mutilation'.

    The practice became popular in the United States as a 19th century tool to stop boys masturbating. Female circumcision is ultimately a brutal means of oppressing women's sexuality, and male circumcision was intended to achieve the same.

    Writing about the practice in 1978, Karen Paige suggested that, "When a custom persists after its original functions have died, it may be accorded the status of a ritual." Circumcision failed to stop masturbation, but became engrained in the American consciousness as a bizarre rite-of-passage, a throw-back to the burnings, whippings and cuttings still practised in other tribes around the world.

    Divorced from its original purpose, circumcision has become a treatment in search of a disease, and post hoc justifications abound. Surveys suggest that the two most common rationalizations invoked by parents are hygiene and appearance. The hygiene argument is self-evidently daft – for no other part of the body do we advocate "chop it off" over "wash it more thoroughly" as the preferred option for improving hygiene. As for aesthetics, for a parent to be that concerned about the cosmetic appearance of their baby son's sexual organs is frankly a bit disturbing, but surely it should be for the individual to decide?

    Health benefits of circumcision are commonly cited, but tend to evaporate when challenged, with medical professional bodies tending to dismiss it as a question of personal choice. The British Medical Association for example states that, "the medical harms or benefits have not been unequivocally proven but there are clear risks of harm if the procedure is done inexpertly." ...

    read the rest of the article at:

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/the-lay-scientist/2011/dec/06/1

    ReplyDelete

  9. Dad who botched circumcision loses court appeal

    The Canadian Press December 22, 2011

    A B.C. man who performed a botched circumcision on his four-year-old son on the kitchen floor of his home has lost an appeal of his conviction and been found guilty of a more serious charge.

    The B.C. Court of Appeal has stayed the man's conviction for criminal negligence causing bodily harm and convicted him of aggravated assault.

    Court heard the boy was born premature at only 2.5 pounds and could not be circumcised at the time, nor did his parents request it.

    But the court found the boy's father "changed his world view" over the ensuing years.

    "He came to understand that there was great utility in keeping the laws of Moses, including that of circumcision," the appeal ruling said.

    The trial judge found "that the accused decided that because so many disasters had befallen his family, he had to 'make things right with God."'

    The man, who had no medical training, tried to do the circumcision in 2007 after doctors refused to do it on the grounds the operation would require a general anesthesic, which couldn't be justified on a boy that age.

    Court documents say the man gave alcohol to the boy, referred to only by the initials D.J., and used a blade that was not as sharp as a surgical instrument. To stanch the bleeding, the man used a veterinary powder suitable only for livestock.

    The boy was taken to hospital four days later and required corrective surgery, including a proper circumcision. The surgeon testified his penis would have healed to be badly deformed.

    Among her reasons for convicting the man, the trial judge, who is not named, noted that the man had tried to circumcise himself a few years before he undertook the procedure on his son.

    His actions caused "his foreskin to bleed in nine places, requiring the assistance of 911 and sutures in hospital," resulting in an infected penis.

    "The accused was aware of the dangers of performing a circumcision on his son," the trial judge wrote.

    The man, who was not named, was charged with criminal negligence causing bodily harm, aggravated assault and assault with a weapon for the incident with his son.

    At the man's original trial, the judge in the case convicted him on the negligence charge but acquitted him on the assault charges.

    He appealed his conviction, arguing his religious beliefs should have allowed him to do the procedure, but the Appeal Court rejected the appeal.

    "The accused's religion did not demand that the circumcision be performed by the accused himself, nor did the trial judge find that religious necessity dictated that the circumcision be performed immediately so that the accused was left with no alternative but to perform the operation himself," the appeal court ruling said.

    "Thus, it is not the accused's religious beliefs that are at issue, but the rights and best interests of D.J. with respect to whether he should have been subjected to an attempted circumcision by his father in the circumstances and conditions under which it was attempted."

    The Crown appealed the acquittals on the assault charges and while the appeal court rejected the charge of assault with a weapon, it imposed a conviction on the charge of aggravated assault.

    The court has ordered new sentencing for the man, who was originally given two years in prison under the criminal negligence charge.

    http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2011/12/22/bc-botched-circumcision.html

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  10. Victory in sight for revolution over female genital mutilation

    by Nina Lakhani, The Independent UK February 6, 2012


    Amid the horrors surrounding female genital mutilation (FGM) there is a quiet revolution, which experts hope could lead to the eradication of the practice.

    Thousands of rural communities across Africa, which have practiced FGM for centuries, are starting to abandon the tradition in response to grass-roots education programmes. Analysts are even daring to talk of eradication within two generations – something that was unimaginable even five years ago.

    Another 2,000 communities in countries including Sudan, Somalia and Egypt rejected the practice in 2011.

    FGM is a harmful social convention in which part, or all, of a girl's external genitals are removed. Each year around three million girls – 8,000 a day – face FGM. An estimated 130 million girls and women are living with painful complications.

    FGM occurs within 28 African countries, but also the Middle East, in Yemen, Oman and UAE, and parts of Asia including Malaysia. Girls are generally aged between five and 11; most girls are cut without anaesthetic using an unsterilised blade.

    Tostan, a community-based human rights organisation, which originates in Senegal, has an FGM abandonment success rate of 77 per cent and is working in eight other African countries. The first community rejected the practice in 1997.

    Traditionally, an uncut girl is considered unsuitable for marriage and maybe rejected by her community. This is why the community-based approach used by the NGO Tostan has succeeded where many others have failed. It involves whole communities, including the men, in rejecting the practice.

    Julia Lalla-Maharajh, founder of UK charity Orchid, which supports Tostan, said: "The exponential rise in communities rejecting FGM means we can start to think about eradication in our lifetime. In 1899, 94 per cent of Chinese girls had their feet bound; by 1919 this was down to zero.

    "We know that Tostan's approach works, so it is now a matter of resources."

    Latest figures from the UN show that 8,000 communities have abandoned both FGM and forced marriage. This includes 5,315 in Senegal, 670 in Sudan, 600 in Guinea, and 92 in Djibouti.

    In 2008, the UNFPA, the United Nations Fund for Population Activities, and UNICEF, the UN children's fund, asked members to donate $40m (£25.3m) to fund an initiative called Acceleration of the Abandonment of FGM. It has received only half of the money so far.

    The Minister for International Development, Stephen O'Brien, witnessed first-hand the impact of FGM during a recent visit to Senegal. The UK currently funds projects in Senegal and Kenya. "Tostan's success has shown the world what can be done, and gives us confidence that even behaviour so deeply embedded in culture can be changed. It means the DfID is looking a lot more to help stamp out this millennia-old practise... and part of that will be supporting research to see how we can scale up what Tostan does without losing its community essence."

    In the most extreme form of FGM, the entire external genitals are cut away. The wound left will be sewn up, with only a tiny hole left for menstrual blood and urine. Around the time of her wedding, a young woman will be cut open, just enough for penetrative sex. She is also further cut to give birth, then re-sewn.

    IN NUMBERS

    62%: Amount of 15 to 19-year-olds subjected to FGM in Ethiopia, compared to an 81 per cent rate among 35 to 39-year-olds.

    140m: Estimated number of women globally subjected to FGM

    5,315: The number of villages in Senegal that were known to use FGM – that have signed public declarations abandoning it.

    17: African countries to pass laws banning practice

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/victory-in-sight-for-revolution-over-female-genital-mutilation-6579560.html

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