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Intersex Human Righs Defenders, 57th Session UN Committee against Torture (CAT):
Vincent Guillot (France, IGM survivor), Daniela Truffer (StopIGM.org, IGM survivor), Markus Bauer (StopIGM.org). To their right in front of her laptop, with back to the camera Sapana Pradhan-Malla (Nepal, CAT member), above her left, all in the back in the center of the glass wall Jens Modvig (Denmark, CAT chairperson and Co-Rapporteur for France), who both expertly questioned the French delegation on IGM practices – THANK YOU!!
Press Release by StopIGM.org 14.05.2016
1. Committee against Torture reprimands France for IGM Practices
2. Next in line: The UK
3. Background: The UN Condemn Intersex Genital Mutilations
1. Committee against Torture reprimands France for IGM Practices
StopIGM.org warmly welcomes the binding 2016 “Concluding Observations” of the UN Committee against Torture for France:
>>> CAT/C/FRA/CO/7, PDF, French, on Intersex: p. 7, paras. 32-33
The Committee once more unmistakably denounced IGM practices as serious crimes clearly in breach of the Convention against Torture and constituting at least Inhuman Treatment, referring to art. 2, 12, 14, 16 of the Convention.
StopIGM.org particularly appreciates that the Committee specifically obliged France to “take the necessary legislative, administrative and other measures to guarantee the respect for the physical integrity and autonomy of intersex persons”, and “to undertake measures to ensure redress for victims, including adequate compensation”.
And to “ensure access to psychosocial counselling and support for persons concerned, their parents and care givers free of charge“ and “to investigate cases of medical or surgical treatments of intersex persons without their informed consent”.
This marks the 11th time that a UN Treaty Body condemns IGM practices and reprimands a Government for tolerating and/or supporting these serious human rights violations.
In February 2016, France was already reprimanded for IGM practices by the UN Committee for the rights of the Child (CRC).
Intersex Genital Mutilations in France: 2016 UN-CAT Report
Human Rights Violations Of Persons With Variations Of Sex Anatomy
IGM – Most Common Forms • What is Intersex? • Inhuman Treatment
>>> Download (PDF 3.71 MB)
2. Next in line: The UK
The next State up for review of IGM practices is the United Kingdom at the 72nd session of the Committee for the rights of the Child (CRC) on 23-24 May 2016.
Intersex Genital Mutilations in the UK: 2016 UN-CRC Report
Human Rights Violations Of Persons With Variations Of Sex Anatomy
IGM – Most Common Forms • What is Intersex? • A Harmful Practice
>>> Download (PDF 3.60 MB)
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 +41 (0) 76 398 06 50
Markus Bauer +41 (0) 78 829 12 60
Founding members Zwischengeschlecht.org / StopIGM.org
presse_at_zwischengeschlecht.info
3. Background: The UN Condemn Intersex Genital Mutilations
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, 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 practices 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.
Since February 2015, 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, Chile, France and Ireland for failing to adopt necessary legislation 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 – in addition to France – so far reprimanded Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Denmark and Hong Kong.
Other international human rights bodies to condemn IGM practices include WHO, UNICEF, the Special Rapporteur on Torture, the Human Rights Committee (HRCttee) and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).
Intersex Genital Mutilations in the UK: 2016 UN-CRC Report
Human Rights Violations Of Persons With Variations Of Sex Anatomy
IGM – Most Common Forms • What is Intersex? • A Harmful Practice
>>> Download (PDF 3.60 MB)
Intersex Genital Mutilations in France: 2016 UN-CAT Report
Human Rights Violations Of Persons With Variations Of Sex Anatomy
IGM – Most Common Forms • What is Intersex? • Inhuman Treatment
>>> Download (PDF 3.71 MB)
>>> France Questioned over IGM Practices by the UN Committee against Torture
>>> “No law to protect intersex children from the daily mutilations in France”
>>> IGM = “Harmful Practice” + “Violence”: UN-CRC Reprimands France
>>> 11 Verdicts by UN Treaty Bodies Condemning IGM – And Counting …
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 as 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)