On the 14th of December in Manchester Crown Court. A midwife, Grace Adeleye, was found guilty by a jury of the manslaughter, by gross negligence, of Goodluck Caubergs, a four week old baby boy who died the day after she circumcised him.
The deaths that occur following circumcision are the high profile repercussions of a practice that in all cases (where intervention is not based on medical imperatives) leaves the child’s health compromised.
We call upon the Government to implement the U.N. Convention on The Rights of The Child article 24.3
States Parties shall take all effective and appropriate measures with a view to abolishing traditional practices prejudicial to the health of children.
In an age when children’s rights are increasingly recognised, the law should protect all children equally regardless of gender, ethnicity or parental belief. The Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 discriminates against males and children with atypical genitals by offering them protection inferior to that afforded to females. This neglect of male and intersex children’s rights is particularly striking in the light of The Tattooing of Minors Act 1969, which set an encouragingly low threshold concerning the permanent alteration of a child’s body. It is hard to see how the ablation of a healthy child’s foreskin is in any way less damaging than the deliberate scarification or tattooing of a child. One is led to wonder why the rights of male and intersex children continue to be overlooked. Why is the inevitable harm of non-therapeutic circumcision, and the avoidable deaths which sometimes result, still being tolerated by society?
By Peter Ball November 27, 2012 - 8:15 pm
I hope this disaster will jolt the government into taking appropriate action to prevent non therapeutic circumcision of children .
By Susanne November 27, 2012 - 9:38 pm
Sadly, Peter, I don’t think this will jolt the government to change their policies one jot.
All the emphasis in this case will be switched to the *circumstances* under which the boy’s genitals were cut, rather than the fact that they were cut at all.
I can virtually guarantee that any questioning whether the act of cutting an infant’s genitals should be made illegal will be summarily silenced by religious lobbyists.
I wish that weren’t the case, but I suspect it will be.
By linda massie November 28, 2012 - 1:09 am
We have written to all public officials and Departments for nearly 2 decades, We have documented our children’s harm To continue to ignore us, the victims, the families of victims they know who we are here and that we are not going away. To continue to ignore this child sex abuse within our society would be equal to the lack of understanding of action which those who were involved in the Jimmy Saville coverup have denied. Anyone in the UK in 2012 who denies that children are not being sexually abused by unnecessary genital surgery must claim they are unable to read and i doubt that it the case. We are prepared to be interviewed.
By Keith Rutter December 6, 2012 - 8:34 pm
How many more babies will die, or be rendered sexually defective before Infant MGM is banned? How many older men will it take to make a protest large enough to make the deniers sit up and take action? Non-therapeutic surgery must surely come under the scope of the Offences against the Person Act of 1861, and several child protection Acts of the 29th century. As a victim, I am ready to join with others to bring this anomaly to court.
By Bartleby Jones July 6, 2013 - 3:24 pm
19th* century.
By Keith Rutter December 6, 2012 - 8:50 pm
To all who claim circumcision is not child abuse. It is, no other parts of a child’s body may be removed on a whim, no matter if that whim is thousands of years old, or invented last week. Circumcision is designed to reduce sexual pleasure for both him and his partner, it does, and probably always was intended to do so. I now derive no pleasure from intercourse, not surprising as the sensory nerves were all taken away. My son is intact, as are almost all British boys and men, and very few elect, or need, to be otherwise.
The Government must stand firm on the banning of genital cutting of boys, as they did with girls. Great Britain is a modern democratic country, and the law must apply to all, regardless of whether they believe that an ancient book should dictate their every action.
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[…] There are deaths as the recent case in Manchester illustrates. Death is one end of a spectrum of harm that is glossed over by the authorities. The […]