Colombia High Court Restricts Intersex Genital Mutilation
|Colombia High Court Restricts Intersex Genital Mutilation |
|Date: October 26, 1999 |Latin America & Caribbean » Colombia » Press Release |
|Colombia High Court Restricts Intersex Genital Mutilation: |
|First High Court to Address Human Rights Violation |
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|Joint Press Release: ISNA, IGLHRC, NCLR |
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|For Immediate Release: October 26, 1999 |
|BOGOTA, COLOMBIA -- The Constitutional Court of Colombia recently issued two decisions (SU-337/99, May 12 1999 and T-551/99, Aug 2, |
|1999) which significantly restrict the ability of parents and doctors to resort to the scalpel when children are born with atypical |
|genitals. These surgeries -- also known as IGM, or Intersex Genital Mutilation -- have been widely practiced for over 40 years in |
|most industrialized countries. In the US experts estimate that at least five children are cut every day. "Here in the US, doctors |
|who perform IGM continue to reject the voices of those harmed by the surgery. Current laws do not protect us," noted Cheryl Chase of|
|the Intersex Society of North America (ISNA). |
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|This is the first time that a high court anywhere has considered whether IGM is a violation of human rights. |
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|Colombia's Constitutional Court went further than the pressing issue of IGM. The Court recognized that intersex people are a |
|minority which enjoys the constitutional protection of the State against discrimination, and that every individual has a |
|constitutional right to define his or her own sexual identity. The Court concluded both decisions with the same emphatic |
|exhortation: |
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|"Intersexed people question our capacity for tolerance and constitute a challenge to the acceptance of difference. Public |
|authorities, the medical community and the citizenry at large have the duty to open up a space for these people who have until now |
|been silenced [...] We all have to listen to them, and not only to learn how to live with them, but also to learn from them." |
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|"We hope that human rights activists around the world will follow the Court's mandate," stated Sydney Levy of the International Gay |
|and Lesbian Human Rights Commission. "Mutilation is torture any way you look at it." |
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|The Court's decision came after an exhaustive, year-long investigation, in which it weighed arguments by doctors and parents -- who |
|insist on surgery to make babies "normal" -- against opposition to the practice by those harmed by IGM, including an amicus brief by|
|ISNA. "The Court noted that this is not a medical decision, but a judicial and ethical decision. Ethicists in the US have uniformly |
|denounced IGM as unethical, but until US courts act, American doctors will continue to perform IGM on 2,000 children every year," |
|noted Chase. |
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|In addition to the Colombian Constitution, the Court also based its holding on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the |
|Child. According to Shannon Minter, staff attorney for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, "the Court recognized that children |
|are persons entitled to human rights, not simply the property of parents and/or the state. By holding that parents must place the |
|well-being and best interests of their child above social prejudice, the Court affirmed the inherent dignity and worth of all |
|children, including those who are gender variant." The US is not a signatory of the Convention. |
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|More information on the decisions is available in "Colombia High Court Limits Surgery on Intersexed Infants," by Julie Greenberg, |
|Professor of Law at Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego, at Colombia. |
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|ISNA works to create a world free of shame, secrecy, and genital mutilation for people born with atypical sex anatomy. For more |
|information, visit our web site at |
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|IGLHRC's mission is to protect and advance the human rights of all people and communities subject to discrimination or abuse on the |
|basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, or HIV status. |
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|NCLR is a lesbian, feminist, multi-cultural legal resource center dedicated to creating a world in which all lesbians can live |
|fully, without fear of discrimination. |
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|Sentencia SU-337/99 |
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|Sentencia No. T-477/95 |
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