The brand new >>> WHO Report “Sexual health, human rights and the law” (PDF) contains an individual section (!) “Intersex people” (p. 27-28). THANKS to Mauro Cabral and everyone who made it possible!! Highlights include:
“A major concern for intersex people is that so-called sex normalizing procedures are often undertaken during their infancy and childhood, to alter their bodies, particularly the sexual organs, to make them conform to gendered physical norms, including through repeated surgeries, hormonal interventions and other measures. As a result, such children may be subjected to medically unnecessary, often irreversible, interventions that may have lifelong consequences for their physical and mental health, including irreversible termination of all or some of their reproductive and sexual capacity.” (p 26)
“Increasingly, concerns are being raised by intersex people, their caregivers, medical professionals and human rights bodies that these interventions often take place without the informed consent of the children involved and/or without even seeking the informed consent of their parents (178, 262, 264, 270–273).” (p. 26)
“It has also been recommended [by human rights bodies and ethical and health professional organizations] that investigation should be undertaken into incidents of surgical and other medical treatment of intersex people without informed consent and that legal provisions should be adopted in order to provide remedies and redress to the victims of such treatment, including adequate compensation (91, 264).” (p. 27)
After the ground-breaking 2014 WHO Interagency Statement, this new report underlines that recognition of the serious human rights violations perpertrated daily on intersex people allover the “developed world” by leading human rights bodies is here to stay! What’s more, virtually all previous imortant human rights and ethics statements and reports are referenced, including the 2011 CAT Concl. Obs., the 2012 Swiss National Advisory Commission on
Biomedical Ethics (NEK-CNE) Opinion, and the 2013 Special Rapporteur on Torture Report.
(That the ground-breaking 2015 CRC Concl. Obs. classifying IGM as a “Harmful Practice” is missing is arguably due to deadline reasons.)
May all doctors who nonetheless still continue to perform harmful IGM Practices on defenceless children soon feel the full force of the law!