>>> FRANÇAIS: « Mutilations Génitales Intersexes: L’ONU réprimande la France »
NGO Reports to CRC documenting crimes against intersex children in France and Ireland
Press Release by StopIGM.org 28.01.2016:
During its 71st Session, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) expertly questioned Ireland over non-consensual, medically unnecessary, irreversible, cometic genital surgeries and other harmful treatments of intersex children (in the vernacular also known as hermaphrodites), aimed at “correcting” their “atypical” reproductive anatomies.
>>> Intersex Genital Mutilations in Ireland (PDF)
The Irish delegation repeatedly denied the practice taking place in Ireland, despite ample evidence linking IGM practices to several Irish university children’s clinics and treatment guidelines by the HSE. In the end Minister Dr. James Reilly, referring to his own practical experience as a medical doctor, inadvertendly confirmed such treatments “very often” being carried out on “very young babies”. >>> Session Transcript
IGM survivors and intersex human rights defenders expect the Committee to issue very strong binding recommendations to the Irish government, to be published tomorrow Friday afternoon on the Committee’s Session Homepage.
An extensive thematic report to the Committee on the practice in Ireland filed by Irish IGM survivor and intersex human rights defender Gavan Coleman in collaboration with the international intersex NGO StopIGM.org, proved IGM practices being advocated and perpetrated all across Ireland, including by the Health Service Executive (HSE), the National Children’s Research Centre at Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital in Dublin, and the Cork University Children’s Hospital in Wilton. In a private meeting with the Committee’s Co-Rapporteurs for Ireland, Coleman and StopIGM.org also testified to the severe physical and psychological pain and suffering caused by Intersex Genital Mutilations in Ireland.
In addition to Ireland, during its 71st Session in Geneva the CRC also expertly investigated IGM in France, a state party infamous for impertinently advocating and perpetrating IGM practices internationally, and thus expected to be issued a particularly stern reprimand.
>>> Intersex Genital Mutilations in France (PDF) >>> Session Transcript
Background: IGM and Human Rights
Typical forms of IGM practices include “masculinising” and “feminising”, “corrective” genital surgery, castration and other sterilising procedures, imposition of hormones, forced genital exams, vaginal dilations and medical display, withholding crucial information from patients an parents, human experimentation, and denial of needed health care.
IGM Practices cause known lifelong severe physical and psychological pain and suffering, including loss or impairment of sexual sensation, painful scarring, painful intercourse, incontinence, urethral strictures, impairment or loss of reproductive capabilities, lifelong dependency of artificial hormones, significantly elevated rates of self-harming behaviour and suicidal tendencies, lifelong mental suffering and trauma, increased sexual anxieties, less sexual activity.
Since 1950, IGM has been practised systematically and on an industrial scale allover the “developed world”, with all typical IGM forms still practised today. Parents and children are misinformed, kept in the dark, sworn to secrecy, kept isolated and denied appropriate support.
For more than 20 years, survivors have criticised IGM practces as harmful and traumatising, as a fundamental human rights violation, as a form of genital mutilation and child sexual abuse, as torture or ill-treatment, and called for legislation to end it and to ensure remedies.
In the past twelve months, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) has repeatedly criticised unnecessary intersex treatments as a Harmful Practice and thus comparable to Female Genital Mutilation, and has so far reprimanded Switzerland and Chile for failing to protect intersex children’s right to bodily integrity and to ensure equal access to remedies and justice for victims.
Similarly, since 2011 the UN Committee against Torture (CAT) recognised IGM practices as constituting at least Inhuman Treatment in violation of the Convention against Torture, and so far reprimanded Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Denmark and Hong Kong. Other UN bodies to condemn IGM include the Human Rights Committee (HRCttee), WHO, UNICEF and the Special Rapporteur on Torture.
States as contracting parties to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention against Torture and other applicable Covenants including CCPR and CRPD can no longer feign ignorance of the illegal nature of IGM practices, but now must take all appropriate measures including legislation to eliminate them, and to guarantee access to effective redress and justice for all IGM survivors!
The international intersex human rights NGO StopIGM.org demands the prohibition of forced genital surgeries on children and adolescents with Variations of Sex Anatomy and “Human Rights for Hermaphrodites too!”
Persons concerned shall later decide themselves, if they want surgeries or not, and if yes, which.
Kind regards
Daniela “Nella” Truffer, Markus Bauer
Founding members human rights NGO Zwischengeschlecht.org / StopIGM.org
Mobile +41 (0) 76 398 06 50
Mobile +41 (0) 78 829 12 60
presse_at_zwischengeschlecht.info
Intersex Genital Mutilations in Ireland: CRC NGO Report
Human Rights Violations Of Children With Variations Of Sex Anatomy
IGM – Most Common Forms • What is Intersex? • How Common are IGMs?
>>> Download (PDF 3.60 MB)
>>> Transcript of Intersex Q&A Session Ireland
>>> UN Media Release on the Session with Ireland, mentions intersex
Intersex Genital Mutilations in France: CRC NGO Report
Human Rights Violations Of Children With Variations Of Sex Anatomy
IGM – Most Common Forms • What is Intersex? • How Common are IGMs?
>>> Download (PDF 3.41 MB)
>>> Transcript of Intersex Q&A Session France
>>> UN Media Release on the Session with France, mentions intersex
See also:
• UN Committee for the Rights of the Child (CRC) 2015: IGM = Harmful Practice
• UN Committee against Torture (CAT) 2015: IGM = Inhuman Treatment or Torture
• UN Human Rights Committee (HRCttee) to examine IGM Practices
• UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) condems IGM
• Historic 56th Session of Committee against Torture reprimands 4 Governments over IGM
• CAT 2011: Germany must investigate IGM practices and compensate survivors!
IGM on a Global Scale: 2015 UN-CRC Briefing
• IGM: A Survivor’s Perspective • Intersex Movement History
• What are Variations of Sex Anatomy? • What are IGM Practices?
• IGM and Human Rights • Conclusion: IGM is a Harmful Practice
>>> Download PDF (3.14 MB) >>> Table of Contents
Eliminating IGM practices by holding the perpetrators accountable via well-established applicable human rights frameworks, including Inhuman Treatment and Harmful Practices – Presentation @ UN expert meeting on Intersex Human Rights in Geneva 26.–27.10.2015
>>> Download PDF (831kb)