We are committed to ending all forms of forced non-therapeutic genital cutting.
This includes female genital mutilation (FGM) and ritual circumcision of boys.
A child's right to bodily autonomy must not be overridden by other people's religious or cultural beliefs.
The National Secular Society supports a person's most fundamental right to grow up with an intact body and to make their own choices about permanent bodily modifications.
All forms of forced cutting on children's genitals breach basic child rights and safeguarding guidance.
Several communities have genital cutting traditions, often rooted in religious beliefs. But children, and particularly babies and young infants, are incapable of giving consent to such medically unnecessary, harmful, painful and permanent procedures.
Sometimes health benefits for non-therapeutic genital cutting are claimed despite the evidence to the contrary. All forms of forced genital cutting risk serious emotional, sexual, and physical harm – including death.
Child safeguarding must always be prioritised above the desire of adults to express their belief through forced cutting of children's genitals.
Female genital mutilation (FGM)
"It is irrelevant whether or not a person believed the operation to be necessary in the child's best interests as a matter of custom or ritual."
We are committed to the eradication of forced genital cutting of girls and women known as Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in all its forms.
There are thought to be well over 100,000 women and girls affected by FGM living in the UK. We work with like-minded organisations to protect girls from the harm of forced genital cutting.
FGM practices vary. Some forms involve a pinprick or the removal of a small amount of tissue from the clitoris. Other forms include complete removal of the clitoris and labia, and stitching the vulva closed. Communities which practice FGM often cite religion as a motivation.
All forms of FGM are child abuse and are rightly illegal in the UK. But some British girls are still unprotected. Some have been sent abroad to undergo the procedure and others are having it performed secretly in this country.
There has been only one successful prosecution for FGM since it was banned in 1985. We are concerned that fear of upsetting cultural and religious sensitivities is preventing authorities from tackling FGM effectively.
"...a right specifically for African families who want to carry on their tradition whilst living in this country"
As with all forms of forced genital cutting, those who speak out against FGM are often accused of disrespecting their parents or cultural heritage, and of over-dramatising a 'minor' procedure that others 'don't complain about'. Together with the perceived humiliation of speaking about one's own genitals, these factors combine to ensure that many sufferers are reluctant to speak out.
Ending FGM requires sustained civil society action to change attitudes and inform girls of their rights.
Male circumcision
While all forms of FGM are rightfully banned, non-therapeutic circumcision of boys is permitted in UK law.
The foreskin is a normal body part with physical, sexual and immunological functions. Removing it from non-consenting children has been associated with various physical and psychological difficulties. These are likely to be greatly under-reported because people who have experienced sexual harm are often reluctant to reveal it as societal dismissal or stigmatisation may compound the harm.
Circumcision is excruciatingly painful. When performed on babies, little to no anaesthesia is used. Even when performed under anaesthesia on older children, the recovery entails weeks of pain and discomfort.
The procedure is also dangerous. Between 1988 and 2014, there were 22,000 harms recorded by the NHS resulting circumcision. They included scarring and full penis amputation. In 2011, nearly a dozen infant boys were treated for life-threatening haemorrhage, shock or sepsis as a result of non-therapeutic circumcision at a single children's hospital in Birmingham. In 2007, a newborn baby went into cardiac arrest minutes after he was circumcised in a London synagogue, and subsequently died.
Any claims of marginal health benefits of circumcision are extremely contested. No national medical, paediatric, surgical or urological society recommends routine circumcision of all boys as a health intervention. There is now growing concern among doctors that existing ethical principles of non-therapeutic childhood surgery should no longer include an exception for non-therapeutic circumcision.
62% of Brits would support a law prohibiting the circumcision of children for non-medical reasons. Only 13% would oppose it.
There is very limited regulation of non-therapeutic circumcision in the UK. We do not know how many such procedures are performed annually or the degree of harm, as there is no requirement for any follow up or audit and the boys themselves are too young to complain.
It is now being recognised more widely that non-therapeutic religious and cultural circumcision is a breach of children's rights. We want to see the same protections for girls' bodily autonomy extended to boys.
Take action!
1. Write to your MP
Ask your MP to support an end to non-consensual religious genital cutting
2. Share your story
Tell us why you support this campaign, and how you are personally affected by the issue. You can also let us know if you would like assistance with a particular issue.
3. Join the National Secular Society
Become a member of the National Secular Society today! Together, we can separate religion and state for greater freedom and fairness.
Latest updates
1200 cases of FGM reported in three months – but data “likely” to underestimate
Posted: Thu, 9 Jun 2016 12:13
New data has shown a surge in reported cases of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in England, with over 1200 reports made in the first three months of 2016.
Figures released by the Health and Social Care Information Centre showed that there were 1242 newly "recorded cases of FGM" from January to March 2016 and that over half of the cases came from women and girls in London.
The Centre said that the data included 11 "newly recorded cases" of FGM involving "women and girls reported to have been born in the United Kingdom."
The release of the figures comes after a law requiring the mandatory reporting of FGM in England and Wales came into force in October 2015.
Dr Antony Lempert of the Secular Medical Forum said forced genital cutting was a "serious problem throughout the world including the UK" and that the new law was possibly leading to "an increased culture of reporting of FGM" even though reporting is only mandatory in cases involving girls who are under 18 years old.
Commenting on the new data he said: "Most cases in the reported dataset were of FGM types 1 and 2 which include the permanent violent removal of the clitoris and labia. Type 3 FGM includes the practice of infibulation whereby the vaginal opening is sewn up. This carries significant risks for menstruation, urination and childbirth and is known to increase maternal and infant mortality and often causes lifelong misery.
"Forced genital cutting involves powerful adults with vested interests forcibly removing erogenous, functional, intimate tissue from the healthy body of a vulnerable child whose intimate relationships will be affected lifelong by the practice. In some cases children will suffer horrendous injuries, some will die. In all cases of forced genital cutting, children's basic human rights are denied."
The Secular Medical Forum also warned that "Official figures are likely to be underestimates as most of the cutting of children's genitals takes place in secret.
Dr Lempert said that the "lifelong misery" caused by FGM is also "likely to be underestimated as many adults suffer in silence rather than face the shame or the danger of challenging the culture of their birth."
To stamp out the practice, Dr Lempert said that prosecution of perpetrators certainly had a place, but he cautioned that this would not be enough on its own. He said that educating children to the danger had to be part of the solution and that there could be no "tacit abandonment" of "children to forced genital cutting."
He said that even some parents who resist the communal pressure to have FGM inflicted on their own children "will resist attempts to prosecute their parents or community leaders even should they later find out how much harm has been done to them."
"Basic human and child rights must not depend on the accident of place and culture of birth nor on the gender of the child".
He also argued that efforts to tackle FGM were being undermined by the acceptance of non-therapeutic male circumcision. "Some communities understandably challenge the perceived hypocrisy of being lectured at and prosecuted for cutting girls' genitalia by societies which laud the practice of forced genital cutting of male genitalia similarly for no medical reason."
Dr Lempert said that "Whilst the harms are naturally different between boys and girls, so they are between the different types of FGM which range from a small pinprick to severely mutilating surgery. All forms of forced genital cutting risk serious sexual, physical and emotional harm including death for no medical reason."
"The Secular Medical Forum supports the inalienable right of every person to grow up with an intact body protected from the various whims and religious or cultural dogmas of adults within whose communities they happen to have been born. We consider the best approach to tackling FGM is one that educates all children and communities that children's bodies are not the property of their parents, that surgery should be performed only when there is a medical imperative and that all forms of forced genital cutting by definition, deny children their basic human rights."
Stephen Evans, National Secular Society's campaigns director, said: "These latest figures show that despite the excellent work that has been done to raise the profile of FGM, there can no room for complacency, and more needs to be done to protect potential victims from this horrendous form of abuse. The human rights of children must never be overridden on the grounds of religion, tradition or culture."
There has never been a successful prosecution for Female Genital Mutilation in England and Wales.
Secular medics welcome religious circumcision ruling
Posted: Fri, 22 Apr 2016 10:37
A High Court judge has ruled against a devout Muslim who wanted his children circumcised, finding that the boys should be able to make the choice themselves in a judgement welcomed by the Secular Medical Forum.
Dr Antony Lempert of the SMF described the ruling as a small but "welcome" step "towards safeguarding children from forced genital cutting."
Religious requirements "should not be allowed to override a person's most fundamental right to grow up with an intact body and to make their own choices about permanent bodily modifications," he said.
"It is a procedure that permanently removes healthy, erogenous and functional tissue from the most intimate part of a person's body without that person's consent and for no medical reason.
"That it should take a parental disagreement in court for a child to be protected from forced genital cutting remains a serious concern from a child safeguarding perspective."
The judge said that the boys' mother was "resolutely opposed" to having the children circumcised and ruled that "There is no guarantee that these boys will wish to continue to observe the Muslim faith with the devotion demonstrated by their father, although that may very well be their choice."
She added: "They are still very young and there is no way of anticipating at this stage how the different influences in their respective parental homes will shape and guide their development over the coming years."
James Chegwidden, who acted as junior counsel for the mother in the case, said that while he could not comment on the specifics of the case, the ruling was "an encouraging step towards the legal protection every child deserves."
He said that the decision was "a reminder that, together with the freedom to practise a religion or philosophy for oneself, comes the necessary obligation not to impose that religion or philosophy on others."
But he warned that the case revealed "just how limited our current legal protection of our children is."
"Bodily autonomy is a right of every child – it cannot be reduced or ignored simply because both its parents happen to be religious. For a right so fundamental as bodily autonomy for a child to depend totally on the whim of an adult is simply unacceptable.
"The court has still yet to classify infant circumcision as 'significant harm', despite the significant evidence that male genital cutting is at least as invasive as some forms of FGM."
The father, an Algerian-born Muslim who has lived in England for fifteen years, is now separated from the boys' mother, whom he had met ten years ago and subsequently lived with. He entered the UK using false travel documents but was subsequently given a British passport.
The couple separated after the mother, from Devon, and the two boys had to flee their home when he violently attacked her in 2012. He was described as "an increasingly controlling and violent individual who sought to impose restrictions on how she lived her life." He had previously "threatened many times that he will abduct the children to Algeria" and was "violent, threatening and controlling towards the mother."
Mrs Justice Roberts said that the father was a "devout Muslim" committed to ensuring that as part of his son's "dual heritage" they "grow up as Muslims observing all the tenets and practices" of Islam.
The children are currently aged six and four, and the judge said that she had reached a "clear conclusion" about the "irreversible procedure" and that the children should have the right to choose for themselves.
"I am simply deferring that decision to the point where each of the boys themselves will make their individual choices once they have the maturity and insight to appreciate the consequences and longer-term effects of the decisions which they reach," the judge said.
"There are risks, albeit small, associated with the surgery, regardless of the expertise with which the operation is performed.
"There must be clear benefits which outweigh these risks which point towards circumcision at this point in time being in their best interests before I can sanction it as an appropriate course at this stage of their young lives."
The judge's warning about the risks of circumcision came as a medical tribunal heard the case of Dr Muhammad Chaudhary, a doctor accused of bungling a circumcision on a two month old baby, who then allegedly tried to bribe the child's family into dropping a claim against him.
He reportedly told the Muslim family that "Litigation in Muslim culture is not usually a route to adopt especially in ritual matters" in an attempt to stop action being taken against him.
Dr Chaudhary failed to repair the damage he had caused during four further surgeries. After he failed to fix the damage he had caused in the initial operation, he advised the family to "treat him [their son] like the Quran and be gentle."
The child was finally referred to a specialist surgeon, the Mirror reported, and had to endure three additional operations in a hospital.
Doctor Lempert said these cases occurred with "nauseating regularity."
"There are practically no restrictions on who can perform forced genital cutting on young (male) children in the UK. The procedure is almost wholly unregulated in the UK. The reality is that we simply don't know the extent of harm caused to young children by ritual circumcision. We do know that many such children turn up in A&E and some need treatment in paediatric Intensive Care Units as a direct result of non-therapeutic circumcision.
"Dr Chaudhary is being investigated because he is a doctor who is alleged to have behaved dishonestly. Ironically, should Dr Chaudhary be removed from the medical register, he would no longer be required to satisfy even the limited requirements of the GMC in this matter and would be free to continue cutting young boys' genitals."
