Intersex Genital Mutilations: 2015 CRPD Intersex NGO Report online

Zwischengeschlecht.org on FacebookThe UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilites (CRPD) will examine Germany March 26-27 in Geneva – and IGM practices will be in the focus!

The thematic NGO report by Zwischengeschlecht.org / StopIGM.org sheds light on the decade-long refusal of the German Government to protect intersex children and adults from IGM practices, to collect data and statistics on related human rights violations, to ensure access to justice and redress for survivors, and to ensure availability of appropriate medication for intersex adults with the salt-losing form of CAH. Version 2.0 PDF with improved accessability.

>>> Download as PDF    >>> HTML     >>> DOC     >>> DOCX

“Compounding the Harm of IGM” – Ellen Feder says it as it is

Zwischengeschlecht.org on Facebook Intersex: No Reckoning, No Reconciliation!>>> Excellent post by Ellen Feder on the typical (non-)reaction of the IGM surgeon Terry Hensle when confronted by survivor Saifa Wall in a ground-breaking segment of “Nightline”, laying bare the continuation of abuse due to the ongoing lack of willlingness of  the perpetrators to engage in reconciliation: 

[I]n refusing to recognize his responsibility to repair the harm he has caused, Hensle commits another harm. As Margaret Walker has argued in her book, Moral Repair, to turn away from the task of repair, “is not only not to do something, it is to do wrong once again”:

Failures to repair wrongs are additional wrongs that create additional obligations to repair the failures. Where wrongs persist unrepaired repeatedly, in an extended series of refusals or failures to repair, the lack of reparative effort on the part of those responsible for repair accrues layers of disregard, indifference, disrespect, contempt, belittlement, or intended careless humiliation.

Thanks, Ellen Feder and Saifa Wall!

Nuremberg: “Intersex person sues clinic for unncessary surgery” – The Local, 27.02.2015

Michaela “Micha” Raab in front of Nuremberg court with solidarity rally, 26.02.2015 (dpa/FAZ)
Placards (left to right): We demand: Comprehensive information against manipulation!” (Katrin Ann Kunze †
during 1st ever intersex lawsuit, Cologne 12.12.2007); STOP Intersex Genital Mutilation” (Heidi Walcutt †
during intersex rally, NYC 1997); “No reckoning, no reconciliation.”

Intersex person Michaela Raab is suing doctors [and the Erlangen University Clinic] in a Nuremberg court, who she said operated on her genitals and put her through female hormone therapy without having told her she was genetically a man.

In 1995, Raab consulted doctors at the University Hospital Erlangen in Southern Germany, wondering why she had never had her period or had her breasts grow by the age of 20.

Doctors put her on female hormone therapy, and she went through an operation to reduce what they told her was an oversized clitoris.

Years later, Raab would discover she had XY chromosomes – making her genetically male – and that her doctors had never let her know.

She said if she had known, she may have decided against the doctors’ treatment strategy.

>>> Read full article at TheLocal.de 
>>> Nuremberg, 26.02.2015: Peaceful Intersex Solidarity Rally for Michaela “Micha” Raab

Intersex Genital Mutilations • 17 Most Common Forms
Human Rights Violations Of Children With Variations Of Sex Anatomy
IGM – Historical Overview  What is Intersex?  How Common are IGMs?
>>> Download PDF (3.65 MB)     >>> Table of Contents

Nuremberg, 26.02.2015: Peaceful Intersex Solidarity Protest for Michaela “Micha” Raab – Trial vs. IGM Surgeon + University Clinic!

Photo: Cologne, 12.12.2007 – World’s first litigation vs. Intersex Genital Mutilator
100’000 € damages for Christiane Völling (3rd from right)!  (Photo: picture-alliance/dpa)

STOP Intersex Genital Mutilation!Zwischengeschlecht.org on FacebookPeaceful Intersex Solidarity Rally at Nuremberg Court
• Thur 26.02.2015 12:30–13:20h (near Main Entrance)

• 13:30h Trial vs. Prof. S. + Erlangen University Clinic because of non-consensual “Clitoral Reduction” and Castration.

Intersex Genital Mutilations (IGM) are a fundamental human rights violation – see you where the action is!

On Thursday, 26 February 2015 the Nuremberg Court – yes, the Nuremberg Court! – will witness a piece of Intersex History, when the case of Michaela “Micha” Raab vs. her former surgeon and his University Clinic will finally kick off after years of stalling and back and forth.

Micha is only the second survivor of IGM worldwide to succeed in suing her mutilator, and the first in Germany to succeed in suing also the University Clinic facilitating the deed; and her case is only the third case reaching a court at all (after Christiane Völling and the still ongoing #justice4MC case) – a stark testament to the factual impunity of IGM doctors, clinics and other responsible bodies and persons, which has been criticised by survivors, the Swiss Ethics Commission (NEK-CNE) and several UN Bodies, including the Committee against Torture (CAT), already in 2011 explicitly calling on Germany to “Undertake investigation of incidents of surgical and other medical treatment of intersex people without effective consent and adopt legal provisions in order to provide redress to the victims of such treatment, including adequate compensation” (see CRC NGO Report, PDF, p. 28-29).

How much longer?!  Enough with mutilating intersex people with impunity!!!

>>> 2015: UNCRC: Intersex Genital Mutilations = “Harmful Practice” + “Violence”!

Intersex Genital Mutilations • 17 Most Common Forms
Human Rights Violations Of Children With Variations Of Sex Anatomy
IGM – Historical Overview  What is Intersex?  How Common are IGMs?
>>> Download PDF (3.65 MB)     >>> Table of Contents

The Racist Roots of Intersex Genital Mutilations (IGM)

Zwischengeschlecht.org on Facebook Intersex: No Reckoning, No Reconciliation!

“Buffon [1777] and De Pauw [1768] believed the rise of hermaphrodites was a natural occurrence resulting from excessive heat in climatic conditions and so they maintained that the hermaphrodite was a problem localized to warmer climates – specifically Africa and Asia. […] De Pauw insistently repeated his belief that hermaphrodites represented another type of human—though not so much as to define a variety or race—which was a monster. Possessing both male and female genitalia marked the hermaphrodite’s inferiority to other normal humans. This [variation], to De Pauw, was enough to make them a different degree of human […]. Their physical condition indicated their inferior nature and status as a bastardized group of people.
– Dana Aliza Levy: “Conceptions and Perceptions of Human Difference: Albinos and Hermaphrodites in the Enlightenment” (2012)

Every year, hundreds or even thousands of academic papers are written that employ “Intersexuals” or “Hermaphrodites” as a mere means to validate or advance gender theory – or, as Emi Koyama and Lisa Weasel (PDF p. 2-9) put it in 2002, where “intersex existence is understood and presented largely as a scholarly object to be studied in order to deconstruct the notion of binary sexes (and thus sexism and homophobia) rather than a subject that has real-world implications for real people […], potentially unintentionally perpetrating the invisibili[ty] and objectification of intersex.” On the other hand, hardly anything gets published on the human rights implications of intersex history, and even less so on the racist, eugenics and nazi implications of past and current classifications and “medical treatment” of intersex people not only in Germany during the “Third Reich”, but all over the “developed world” starting with the “Age of Enlightenment” (for some sources, see 2014 CRC NGO Report, PDF p. 49, 52-53, 69, 84).

The more welcome is Dana Aliza Levy’s exceptional recent bachelor thesis, shedding a light on formative notions of intersex going back to the 18th century which in turn gave rise to the openly racist, eugenics and indeed nazi implications of “intersex as a subhuman deformity that needs to be exterminated, ‘rectified’ or ‘cured’”, which were rife during the first half of the 20th century, and continue to inform the “medical treatment” (including selective (late term) abortion) of intersex persons allover the “developed world” to this very day.
More relevant excerpts and fulltext link after the break:

Intersex Genital Mutilations • 17 Most Common Forms
Human Rights Violations Of Children With Variations Of Sex Anatomy
IGM – Historical Overview • What is Intersex? • How Common is IGM?
>>> Download PDF (3.65 MB)     >>> Table of Contents

IGM as a Harmful Practice: 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
>>> Download PDF (831kb)

Dana Aliza Levy: “Conceptions and Perceptions of Human Difference: Albinos and Hermaphrodites in the Enlightenment” (Bachelor Thesis, 2012)    >>> Fulltext PDF
W A R N I N G : 
The thesis uses pathologising and demeaning language to describe intersex variations troughout, i.e. not only when quoting sources. In the following excerpts, pathologising expressions (with exception of direct or indirect quotes) have been replaced by [variations]:

The myth of Hermaphroditus lasted through the eighteenth century and as a result, the very existence of the hermaphrodite was more heavily debated than the origin of the [variation]. (p 94)

Buffon and De Pauw believed the rise of hermaphrodites was a natural occurrence resulting from excessive heat in climactic conditions and so they maintained that the hermaphrodite was a problem localized to warmer climates – specifically Africa and Asia. (p 108)

This effort aimed to regionalize hermaphroditism as a problem to the other (warm) regions of the world, where Buffon had successfully deemed the natives uncivilized, barbaric, and flawed as compared to Europeans. (p 96)

Michael-Anne chose to continue to live her life as a female. Jaucourt, the philosopher, wished to truly examine her genitalia and dictate the sex as which she should lead her life. Yet, her parents’ refusal to concede to a formal medical examination to assign her a sex troubled Jaucourt’s quest […] (p 100)

Although his discourse was initially somewhat scientific, Jaucourt subjectively cast the female hermaphrodite into a sexualized role. Almost by rule, in his opinion, there were hermaphrodites in Angola who possessed an enlarged clitoris and on their own volition asked others to remove it and enlarge their vaginal canal to better suit their male lovers. [212] Already embodying an excess of sexual genitalia, the notion that these women intended to alter their body for pure sexual gratification – whether it was for themselves or their mates—made the hermaphrodite into a sex-crazed creature concerned solely with pleasure. This sexualization of the hermaphrodite alluded to the erotic libertinism of the time; yet, this reduction of the hermaphrodites to their sexual urges made them less reasonable and more driven by instinct and need like animal. (p 99)

Voltaire’s idea of a hermaphrodite was an imperfect mixture of both sexes within a single human and thus, they became a combination of animal and human – a perfect monstrosity. (p 105)

Diderot made no differentiation between the category of the hermaphrodite and the normal human. (p 102)

Buffon and De Pauw believed the rise of hermaphrodites was a natural occurrence resulting from excessive heat in climactic conditions and so they maintained that the hermaphrodite was a problem localized to warmer climates – specifically Africa and Asia.  (p 108)

Additionally, De Pauw noted that climate motivated the rise of hermaphroditism, and therefore this human deformity was natural. Yet, this natural condition was a “radical” monstrosity. [219] He contested its actual existence, and claimed that almost all hermaphrodites were merely females with overdeveloped sexual organs, which became more enlarged with time and maturation. [220] In most cases, these deformities naturally cured themselves, but in the case of the hermaphrodite, nature had willed the enlargement to remain. Although Maupertuis’s opinion of nature would have concluded that if nature had maintained the deformity, it was an attractive and favorable development, De Pauw maintained hermaphroditism as a disease similar to Jaucourt’s work.

Although other authors’ concession of naturalness in the hermaphrodite somewhat normalized their condition, De Pauw insistently repeated his belief that hermaphrodites represented another type of human –though not so much as to define a variety or race—which was a monster. [221] Possessing both male and female genitalia marked the hermaphrodite’s inferiority to other normal humans. This [variation], to De Pauw, was enough to make them a different degree of human, though his discussion of their humanity did not delve into greater detail. Their physical condition indicated their inferior nature and status as a bastardized group of people. [222]

IGM on a Global Scale: 2015 Briefing for UN-CRC
• IGM: A Survivor’s Perspective • Intersex Movement History
• What are IGM Practices? • What are Variations of Sex Anatomy?
• IGM and Human Rights • Conclusion: IGM as a Harmful Practice
>>> Download PDF (3.14 MB)     >>> Table of Contents

Intersex Genital Mutilations • 17 Most Common Forms
Human Rights Violations Of Children With Variations Of Sex Anatomy
IGM – Historical Overview  What is Intersex?  How Common are IGMs?
>>> Download PDF (3.65 MB)     >>> Table of Contents

“May your hand rot off, which you used to mutilate defenceless children!”

Kinderspital Zürich - Universitäts-Kinderklinik “Human Rights for Hermaphrodites too!” – Zurich, July 6, 2008 (Photo: Ärger)

From a speech by Daniela “Nella” Truffer to future doctors:

At two and a half months, they castrated me, threw my healthy testicles into the dust bin. The doctors decided, I should grow up as a girl, my parents were instructed accordingly. At seven, they shortened my ambiguous genital. After the surgery I went into shock, developed multiple haematoma and necrotic tissue. Pain and scars remained. That I could have died during these surgeries because of a serious heart condition, was of no interest to the doctors. At eighteen, a vagina was tinkered, where there was nothing before.

Personally, I don’t want to resort to an eye for an eye, though I admit to having thought about it, and I don’t want to have to be imprisoned even more on behalf of my castrators and genital mutilators.

So the only thing left for me is finding other ways of standing up for hermaphrodite children, so that at least they may live in the future. To be a voice for your future patients, to convince you, that cosmetic genital surgeries and other medically not necessary interventions violate human rights and must stop.

To all those among you, who in spite still choose pursuing a career as genital mutilators, to you I wish with all my heart, may a horde of crazed hermaphrodites find you, who will direct their anger not at themselves, but against you. May they turn your lives into hell with lawsuits for grievous bodily harm, may they ruin your reputation and plunder your bank accounts! And to those, who even then still don’t have enough, may your hand rot off, which you used to mutilate defenceless children! And perhaps, one day even a hermaphrodite will come to you with a pair of hedge shears, and will teach you what it feels like having to scrape a living with scarred genitals! And the same also to all of you, who, though you don’t perpetrate the mutilations by yourselves, still participate or look the other way.

However, to all those among you, who will abide by “first do no harm”, and one day will enter the medical profession in the name of humanity, to you, even more with all my heart, I wish you all the best for your future.

>>> Full Text: “May your hand rot off, which you used to mutilate defenceless children!” 

“Harmful Practice” and “Violence”: UN Convention on the Rights of the Child Condemns Non-Consensual Genital Surgeries on Intersex Children

UPDATE 11.10.2015: Chile > CRC criticising IGM as “harmful practice” – again!

Zwischengeschlecht.org on FacebookPress Release by StopIGM.org, 05.02.2015:

Heidi Walcutt (1997): 'STOP Intersex Genital Mutilation'

Zwischengeschlecht.org warmly welcomes the historic 2015 “Concluding Observations” of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) for Switzerland.
>>> CRC/C/CHE/CO/2-4, DOC, on Intersex: p. 8-9, paras. 42-43

Not only do they mark the first time the Committee tackled intersex and IGM practices, but indeed the first time any human rights body recognisied non-consensual, medically unnecessary, irreversible, cosmetic genital surgeries and other procedures on intersex children as a “harmful practice”.

We especially appreciate the Committee specifically addressing the “lack of redress and compensation” for survivors, as well as referencing both the recommendations by the Swiss National Advisory Commission on Biomedical Ethics (underlining the need for legal revision including liability, criminal law and statutes of limitation) and the CRC-CEDAW Joint Geneneral Comment No. 18 on harmful practices (highlighting the necessity of developing a holistic policy).

The fight of intersex people and their organsiations for “bodily integrity, autonomy and self-determination” and to eliminate IGM practices is far from over. The CRC’s Concluding Observations however mark an important and most welcome step towards these goals – a sign of hope for intersex children everywhere!

>>> 21.01.2015: UN Committee on the Rights of the Child criticises IGM Practices
>>> Transcript: Intersex Q&A during the 68. Session of CRC, Geneva 2015
>>> 2014 CRC NGO Report “Intersex Genital Mutilations” (PDF 3.65 MB)
>>>
2015 CRC Briefing “Intersex Genital Mutilations on a Global Scale” (PDF 3.14 MB)

The Concluding Observations on intersex and IGM practices (p. 8-9, paras. 42-43):

E.    Violence against children
(arts. 19, 24, para. 3, 28, para. 2, 34, 37 (a) and 39)

[…]

Harmful practices 

42.    While welcoming the adoption of a new provision of criminal law prohibiting genital mutilation, the Committee is deeply concerned at:

[…]

(b)    Cases of medically unnecessary surgical and other procedures on intersex children, which often entail irreversible consequences and can cause severe physical and psychological suffering, without their informed consent, and the lack of redress and compensation in such cases.

43.    The Committee draws the attention of the State party to the Joint General Comment No. 18 on harmful practices (2014), together with the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, and urges the State party to:

[…]

(b)    In line with the recommendations on ethical issues relating to intersexuality by the National Advisory Commission on Biomedical Ethics, ensure that no-one is subjected to unnecessary medical or surgical treatment during infancy or childhood, guarantee bodily integrity, autonomy and self-determination to children concerned, and provide families with intersex children with adequate counselling and support.


The international human rights NGO StopIGM.org demands the prohibition of forced genital surgeries on children and adolescents with ‘atypical’ 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

http://StopIGM.org

UPDATE 11.10.2015: Chile > CRC criticising IGM as “harmful practice” – again!

IGM on a Global Scale: 2015 Briefing for UN-CRC
• IGM: A Survivor’s Perspective • Intersex Movement History
• What are IGM Practices? • What are Variations of Sex Anatomy?
• IGM and Human Rights • Conclusion: IGM as a Harmful Practice
>>> Download PDF (3.14 MB)     >>> Table of Contents

Intersex Genital Mutilations • 17 Most Common Forms
Human Rights Violations Of Children With Variations Of Sex Anatomy
IGM – Historical Overview  What is Intersex?  How Common are IGMs?
>>> Download PDF (3.65 MB)     >>> Table of Contents

“Geneva: UN-Committee Criticises Genital Surgery on Intersex Children as ‘Harmful Practice’ – Written Recommendations due Tomorrow”

Zwischengeschlecht.org on FacebookPress Release by StopIGM.org, 03.02.2015:

'STOP Intersex Genital Mutilation!' - UNHRC Geneva 20.10.2012

The 68th CRC session marked the first time ever the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child tackled intersex and IGM practices. In a ground-breaking move the chair grilled the Swiss Government, labeling non-consensual intersex surgery “an issue of physical integrity”, “a kind of violence to children”, and “a harmful practice”.

This first is the result of the ongoing hard work by intersex NGOs and their allies, engaging in the CRC Human Rights Mechanism and filing no less than 4 NGO reports all explicitly criticising IGM practices, resulting in an invitation for a briefing of the Committee on “Intersex Genital Mutilations on a Global Scale” just before the start of the review of Switzerland.

For 22 years, intersex people have been fighting surgical “genital corrections” on children with variations of sex anatomy, which they criticise as Intersex Genital Mutilations (IGM). For 16 years, they have invoked the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Since 2008 survivors engage with the United Nations human rights mechanisms, and since 2012 with the Committee on the Rights of the Child.

Now, 13 UN bodies as well as the Council of Europe are criticising non-consensual genital surgery and other medically unnecessary interventions on intersex children (CEDAW, CAT, SRH, SRT, WHO, OHCHR, UNICEF, UN Women, UNAIDS, UNDP, UNFPA, CRPD, CRC, COE). To this day, Columbia is still the only country worldwide to at least partly restrict IGM practices.

In 2012, the Opinion of the Swiss National Advisory Commission on Biomedical Ethics (NEK-CNE) was welcomed by intersex organisations around the world – however, to this day the Swiss Federal Government refuses to implement its recommendations.

The replies by the state party to the CRC Chair’s questions were clearly less than satisfactory, a sentiment also expressed by the chair in her closing remarks (>>> Transcript).

Undeviatingly, a spokesperson of the Swiss Federal Office for Justice portrayed “mental risks […] for example in the case of problems with their enrolment in school” as a reasonable justification for cosmetic genital surgery on intersex children – contrary to the recommendations of the Swiss National Advisory Commission on Biomedical Ethics explicitly criticising unnecessary genital surgery justified by “psychosocial indications” (!!!). Undeviatingly, Switzerland’s reply focused on “child registration“, “gender”, “assigned sex”, “experienced identity” and so on – while dismissing the right to physical integrity highlighted by the chair – culminating in the stick-in-the-mud claim, IGM practices would only be actually wrong if coinciding with a “wrongly assigned sex”.

While in a surprising U-turn Switzerland announced efforts to collect data on intersex surgeries, it soon became obvious so far this was once more done without consultation of intersex organisations, as they learned for the first time of these endeavours during the CRC session in Geneva.

Intersex persons and their organisations are therefore hoping for strong written Concluding Observations for Switzerland by the Committee, due tomorrow Wednesday – and for a holistic general policy to eliminate all IGM practices everywhere.

>>> 2014 CRC NGO Report “Intersex Genital Mutilations” (PDF 3.65 MB)
>>>
2015 CRC Briefing “Intersex Genital Mutilations on a Global Scale” (PDF 3.14 MB)
>>>
Transcript: Intersex Q&A during the 68. Session of CRC, Geneva 2015

The international human rights NGO StopIGM.org demands the prohibition of forced genital surgeries on children and adolescents with ‘atypical’ 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

http://StopIGM.org

IGM on a Global Scale: 2015 Briefing for UN-CRC
• IGM: A Survivor’s Perspective • Intersex Movement History
• What are IGM Practices? • What are Variations of Sex Anatomy?
• IGM and Human Rights • Conclusion: IGM as a Harmful Practice
>>> Download PDF (3.14 MB)     >>> Table of Contents

Intersex Genital Mutilations • 17 Most Common Forms
Human Rights Violations Of Children With Variations Of Sex Anatomy
IGM – Historical Overview  What is Intersex?  How Common are IGMs?
>>> Download PDF (3.65 MB)     >>> Table of Contents

UPDATE 04.02.0215: The Concluding Observations (–> paras. 42-43) are here!!!
[M]edically unnecessary surgical and other procedures on intersex children” are explicitly mentioned in section “E.  Violence against children”, subsection “Harmful practices”. The Committee, referring to the 2012 recommendations of the Swiss Ethics Commission (NEK-CNE), explicitly “urge[s]” Switzerland to “ensure that no-one is subjected to unnecessary medical or surgical treatment during infancy or childhood, guarantee bodily integrity, autonomy and self-determination to children concerned, and provide families with intersex children with adequate counselling and support”! THANK YOU!!!

“Genf: UN-Ausschuss kritisiert Genital-OPs an Intersex-Kindern als ‘schädliche Praxis’ – Schriftliche Empfehlungen morgen Mittwoch”

FrançaisEnglishVerein Zwischengeschlecht.orgSpendenMitglied werdenAktivitäten

Pressemitteilung von Zwischengeschlecht.org vom 03.02.2015:

'STOP Intersex Genital Mutilation!' - UNHRC Geneva 20.10.2012 Zwischengeschlecht.org on Facebook Die 68. CRC Sitzung war eine kleine Sensation: Zum allerersten Mal überhaupt behandelte der UN-Ausschuss für die Rechte des Kindes die Themen Intersex und IGM-Praktiken. In einem bahnbrechenden Vorstoß stellte die Vorsitzende der Schweiz kritische Fragen – und kritisierte nicht-eingewilligte Intersex-OPs an Kindern als “eine Frage der körperlichen Unversehrtheit”, als “eine Art von Gewalt an Kindern”, und als “schädliche Praxis.

Dieses Novum ist das Ergebnis langer und harter Arbeit von Intersex-NGOs und ihren Verbündeten, die sich am CRC-Menschenrechts-Mechanismus beteiligten und nicht weniger als 4 NGO-Berichte zu Kinderrechten in der Schweiz einreichten, die alle IGM-Praktiken explizit kritisierten. Gefolgt von einer Einladung des Komitees für ein Briefing zum Thema “Intersex-Genitalverstümmelungen auf der globalen Ebene” unmittelbar vor der Staatenprüfung der Schweiz.

Bereits kritisieren nun 13 UN-Gremien sowie der Europarat uneingewillige Genitaloperationen und weitere medizinisch nicht notwendige Eingriffe an Intersex-Kindern (CEDAW, CAT, SRH, SRT, WHO, OHCHR, UNICEF, UN Women, UNAIDS, UNDP, UNFPA, CRPD, CRC, COE). Bis heute ist Kolumbien weltweit das einzige Land, das IGM-Praktiken zumindest teilweise untersagt.

2012 wurde die Stellungnahme der Nationalen Ethikkommission im Bereich der Humanmedizin (NEK-CNE) der Schweiz weltweit gelobt – doch bis heute weigert sich der Bundesrat, die Empfehlungen auch umzusetzen.

Die Antworten der Schweiz auf die Fragen der CRC-Vorsitzenden in Genf waren klar unbefriedigend, was auch die Vorsitzende in einer abschließenden Bemerkung selbst festhielt (>>> Transkript).

Unbeirrt stellte der Vertragsstaat “psychologische Risiken […] zum Beispiel bei Problemen beim Schuleintritt” als angeblich “zwingende medizinische Notwendigkeit” für kosmetische Genitaloperationen an Intersex-Kindern dar – entgegen den Empfehlungen der angeführten Nationalen Ethikkommission, die “psychosoziale Indikationen” für unnötige Genitaloperationen explizit und klar kritisiert (!!!). Ebenso unbeirrt stellte der Vertragsstaat “Personenstand”, “Geschlechtseintrag”, “Geschlechtszuweisung”, “empfundenes Geschlecht” und Ähnliches ins Zentrum – bei gleichzeitiger Missachtung der von der Vorsitzenden hervorgehobenen körperlichen Unversehrtheit – gipfelnd in der ewiggestrigen Behauptung, IGM-Praktiken seien nur bei zusätzlich “falscher Geschlechtszuweisung” wirklich schlimm.

Zwar stellte die Schweizer Vertretung in einer überraschenden Kehrtwende Bestrebungen für Datenerfassung zu Intersex-OPs in Aussicht – doch offensichtlich einmal mehr ohne Konsultation der Betroffenen, die in Genf zum ersten Mal von diesen Plänen erfuhren.

Betroffene rund um den Globus und ihre Organisationen hoffen deshalb, der UN-Ausschuss für die Rechte des Kindes werde morgen Mittwoch deutliche schriftliche Empfehlungen an die Schweiz richten, und eine ganzheitliche Politik zur Eliminierung aller IGM-Praktiken weltweit vorantreiben.

>>> 2014 CRC NGO Report “Intersex Genital Mutilations” (PDF 3.65 MB)
>>> 2015 CRC Briefing “Intersex Genital Mutilations on a Global Scale” (PDF 3.14 MB)
>>> Transkript 68. Sitzung CRC: Fragen und Antworten zu Intersex, Genf 2015

Die internationale Menschenrechtsgruppe Zwischengeschlecht.org fordert ein Verbot von kosmetischen Genitaloperationen an Kindern und Jugendlichen mit “atypischen” körperlichen Geschlechtsmerkmalen sowie “Menschenrechte auch für Zwitter!”.

Betroffene sollen später selber darüber entscheiden, ob sie Operationen wollen oder nicht, und wenn ja, welche.

Freundliche Grüße

Daniela “Nella” Truffer, Markus Bauer
Gründungsmitglieder Menschenrechtsgruppe Zwischengeschlecht.org

Mobile +41 (0) 76 398 06 50, +41 (0)78 829 12 60
presse_at_zwischengeschlecht.info

http://zwischengeschlecht.org
Regelmäßige Updates: http://zwischengeschlecht.info

IGM on a Global Scale: 2015 Briefing for UN-CRC
• IGM: A Survivor’s Perspective • Intersex Movement History
• What are IGM Practices? • What are Variations of Sex Anatomy?
• IGM and Human Rights • Conclusion: IGM as a Harmful Practice
>>> Download PDF (3.14 MB)     >>> Table of Contents

Intersex Genital Mutilations • 17 Most Common Forms
Human Rights Violations Of Children With Variations Of Sex Anatomy
IGM – Historical Overview  What is Intersex?  How Common are IGMs?
>>> Download PDF (3.65 MB)     >>> Table of Contents

Transcript: Intersex Q&A during the 68th Session of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC), Geneva 21.-22.01.2015

Zwischengeschlecht.org on Facebook >>> Comment on the Q&A: Press Release by StopIGM.org, 03.02.2015

Transcript by Nella of the entire 68th CRC Intersex Q&A, Geneva 21.-22.01.2015:

Kirsten Sandberg, Chairperson of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (pictured center): (Video Segment 1, 1:00:32–1:02:23; original English, afternoon session 21.01.2015) “[Thank you. Is there any other member who’d like the floor now? …] Thank you. As I cannot see any other hands, I have a question myself on intersex children.

They were mentioned by Mr Madi [CRC co-rapporteur on Switzerland, in the List of Issues (LoI)] under discrimination, but I would also like to raise it as an issue of physical integrity or kind of violence to children or a harmful practice, because it’s seems that actually in most countries in the world children that are born with an unclear sexual – what do you call it – well, where the genitals of the child are unclear and they may develop this way or that way or they may stay unclear.

There is surgery done to the child at an early stage without proper information given to the parents, and also without the child him- or herself, of course at such an early stage, when you are a baby, being able to have a say in this matter, and also, the child, things are happening also later on, with new surgery, before the child is old enough to have a view on this or able to consent for that matter.

So I wonder, I guess you are aware of this practice, and I wonder if you are considering, or maybe considering to prohibit it actually, to not have it done without a proper consent, which is really an informed consent, and if possible by the child or then perhaps an adult, him- or herself. Exactly how to regulate it might be something that has to be discussed, but anyway the practice as it goes on today does not seem to be one which is in the best interest of these children. So I would like some comments on this.”

Ambassador Stephan Cueni, Head of the Swiss Delegation, Federal Social Insurance Office (pictured 3rd from right): (Video Segment 4, 53:18–53:38, simultaneous translation from French; afternoon session 22.01.2015) “I think we’re now coming to the last question of the first round and it’s the question of the chairperson, it’s on intersex children, and I would like to ask our colleague, Miss Gianinazzi, to answer that question. Debora Gianinazzi of the Federal Justice Office.”

Debora Gianinazzi, Swiss Federal Department of Justice and Police, Private Law Division: (Video Segment 4, 53:40–57:48, simultaneous translation from French, afternoon session 22.01.2015) “Thank you. Indeed aesthetic surgery, genital surgery performed on minors has led to sharp criticisms in Switzerland as well, because this operations are irreversible, and can cause heavy damage to the person, especially if the assigned sex then is not in keeping with the identity experienced by the person him- or herself.

In response to a parliamentary initiative in 2011 the government presented the opinion, according to which these operations designed to assign or change a sex should only be performed in case of imperative medical reasons, for example a very high risk of cancer or mental risks for small children, for example in the case of problems with their enrolment in school, so with their experience in school. So beyond imperative medical grounds infants and young children should never be subjected to operations, unless there is a ward of doctors with the approval of the parents who decide.

So the government asked the National Ethics Commission in the area of Human Health to take up a position on this issue, and this commission indeed handed out an opinion in November 2012, and rallied to the government’s position on this topic.

The commission also made recommendations to the medical corps on medical ethics on a campaign and the rights of the families in this area.

As to child registration we remain in the situation where in Switzerland, when a child is born, the child is registered in the civil register with a gender male or female, but the Commission has requested the Government to ensure that, at a later stage, the gender in the birth certificate can be amended without too many bureaucratic obstacles from the cantonal level of the civil registry.

Following this recommendation the federal authorities issued a recommendation to the cantonal civil registries to this effect, and the point of this was to raise the awareness of all officials in the civil registries and to inform them about the recommendations on the gender, and to incite them to be very careful, when recording gender and names as well. If possible a procedure for the amendment to the registry of the gender on the birth certificate should also be provided for as well as in the civil registry. So that is the current situation in Switzerland.

No, I am sorry, I actually could add something. I could clarify that in general terms the government wishes to collect information on surgery on intersex grounds. For the time being we have no clear data, the Federal Office for Statistics and the Federal Office for Public Health are now working together to develop a design for the collection of data, and the information on such surgery will allow us to gain a better appraisal of the situation.”

Kirsten Sandberg, Chairperson of the Committee on the Rights of the Child: (Video Segment 4, 57:49–59:14; afternoon session 22.01.2015) “Thank you, this is interesting to hear. I just wonder, I didn’t quite catch what you said you had done with the recommendations of the National Ethical Commission. I think some of them were passed on to the medical corps, whatever the medical people, but I think the problem of this, what you started off by saying, is that, if you require, if you have the possibility of doing this, when there are imperative medical reasons.

The doctors, who might have an interest in continuing with this, would very often find those imperative medical reasons, and you mentioned cancer or medical risks [Gianinazzi actually said “mental risks”], and we know from the information we have that this has been allegedly the case with parents who have been persuaded by doctors to have the surgery performed at an early stage.

So it doesn’t really seem strong enough, the reaction. But then I think your information on collecting more information on this is really interesting, because from the information we have nothing has changed since 2012. There is still a lot going on in the same way as before. But thank you very much for the information.”  

Zwischengeschlecht.org on Facebook >>> Comment on the Q&A: Press Release by StopIGM.org, 03.02.2015

IGM on a Global Scale: 2015 Briefing for UN-CRC
• IGM: A Survivor’s Perspective • Intersex Movement History
• What are IGM Practices? • What are Variations of Sex Anatomy?
• IGM and Human Rights • Conclusion: IGM as a Harmful Practice
>>> Download PDF (3.14 MB)     >>> Table of Contents

Intersex Genital Mutilations • 17 Most Common Forms
Human Rights Violations Of Children With Variations Of Sex Anatomy
IGM – Historical Overview  What is Intersex?  How Common are IGMs?
>>> Download PDF (3.65 MB)     >>> Table of Contents