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 have been only two successful prosecutions 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 from 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 circumcision at a single children's hospital in Birmingham. At least three babies have bled to death from circumcision in the UK since 2009: Celian Noumbiwe, Angelo Ofori-Mintah, and Goodluck Caubergs.
Between 2012 and 2022, the General Medical Council (GMC) dealt with 39 complaints relating to 30 doctors regarding circumcisions. The complaints include incidents in which children's penises were left deformed and babies required blood transfusions.
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
Belgian federal committee rules against ritual circumcision
Posted: Wed, 27 Sep 2017 17:16
A Belgian federal government committee has ruled against the circumcision of infant boys for reasons other than medical necessity.
The Committee for Bio-Ethics ruled that bodily integrity was more important than religious faith.
"As circumcision is irreversible and therefore a radical operation, we find the physical integrity of the child takes precedence over the belief system of the parents," said Marie-Geneviève Pinsar, the committee's chair.
The committee was responding to a question posed by a group of doctors from Brussels in 2014. It said it took three years to make its decision because of the question's religious and cultural importance. Estimates in Belgium suggest 15% of men are circumcised.
The decision will not be binding in law, but it adds to the growing weight of medical opinion against unnecessary male circumcision. In 2010 the Royal Dutch Medical Society (KNMG) advised doctors to discourage parents from having their sons circumcised, urging "a strong policy of deterrence".
It said "non-therapeutic circumcision of male minors is a violation of children's rights to autonomy and physical integrity" and added that the procedure can cause complications including bleeding, infection, urethral stricture and panic attacks.
KNMG said any medical advantages of circumcision were significantly outnumbered by the risks and other disadvantages, such as the loss of up to 30% of erogenous tissue.
In 2013 an international group of physicians criticised the American Academy of Paediatrics for promoting infant male circumcision. The Council of Europe adopted a non-binding resolution advising member states not to allow the ritual circumcision of children unconditionally, at least for very young children. The Scandinavian children's ombudsmen issued a joint statement saying children should be allowed to choose for themselves.
And in 2016 the Danish Medical Association said circumcision should only be performed with "informed consent".
Children's right to physical integrity and protection from physical injury is protected by the International Treaty on the Rights of the Child.
The National Secular Society is committed to ending non-consensual surgery on children when it is performed for religious rather than medical reasons. Antony Lempert, of its Secular Medical Forum, commented:
"The decision by the Belgian government's ethics committee is a welcome addition to the growing international consensus that the surgical assignation of a child's genitals with the religious or cultural preferences of their parents violates medical ethics, even when the child is a boy born into a Jewish or Muslim community.
"That these religious communities feel strongly about the practice of ritual male genital cutting is undeniably the main reason why many have shied away from tackling this practice. Babies can neither resist nor complain yet many adult men are now describing their horror at what was done to them in the name of someone else's beliefs and some have spoken of the lifelong complications. Many within the religious communities themselves are also turning away from the practice in order to protect their children from what is now known to cause significant and irreversible harm.
"Child safeguarding procedures have been developed precisely because parents and cultures cannot and do not always protect the children in their care from harm. To deny a child the most basic of protection from permanent bodily modification especially on the most sensitive and private part of his body is undeniably a violation of his rights.
"UK law should be applied consistently. Repeatedly, UK judges have ruled to protect children from similar and arguably less severe practices on the grounds that the child cannot be assumed to have a belief system and must be guaranteed bodily integrity until they are old enough to make informed decisions about their own body. In the SMF we have long argued that the application of the same principles should result in an immediate end to the cutting of any child's healthy genitals for religious or cultural reasons."
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Doctor faces private prosecution for circumcising baby boy without the mother’s consent
Posted: Wed, 24 May 2017 12:10
A doctor is facing a private prosecution for assault after he circumcised a boy without the mother's consent.
Dr Balvinder Mehat circumcised the child while the boy was under the care of his father, in July 2013.
The procedure was performed on the baby, whose parents are separated, while he was with his father for the day. He was returned to his mother later that day and she said "he was obviously in pain".
Following the circumcision she said he was "screaming and crying."
"He has been mutilated and suffered permanent damage."
She is now using legal aid to bring about a private prosecution against the doctor who carried out the procedure. Police decided that there was not enough evidence to prosecute.
The mother's lawyer, Saimo Chahal QC, said: "This mother did not consent to her son undergoing the circumcision procedure, which could constitute a criminal offence. While some people with religious beliefs see circumcision as normal, there are others who see it as an unnecessary assault which can be physically and psychologically harmful."
Men Do Complain, a group which campaigns against male genital mutilation, say that "non-therapeutic genital cutting has significant physical and psychological consequences and has no proven benefits."
In 2015 Sir James Munby, a senior judge, and President of the Family division of the High Court noted that some forms of type IV FGM were "much less invasive than male circumcision". He said "any form" of FGM constitutes "significant harm", including Type IV FGM and that the same "must therefore be true of male circumcision."
He noted that these similar procedures were treated differently by the law and said it was a "curiosity" that the law "is "still prepared to tolerate non-therapeutic male circumcision performed for religious or even for purely cultural or conventional reasons, while no longer being willing to tolerate FGM in any of its forms."
Type IV FGM includes "all other harmful procedures to the female genitalia for non-medical purposes, for example: pricking, piercing, incising, scraping and cauterization".
In 2012 a German court convicted a doctor under existing German law for assault when he performed non-therapeutic circumcision on a healthy boy. The conviction prompted anger from Muslims and Jews throughout the world. Within a few months, the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, pushed through new legislation to exempt male circumcision from such legal safeguards and child protection mechanisms.
In 2013 the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe passed a recommendation challenging "medically unjustified violations of children's physical integrity". It called on the Council to take account of "children's right to physical integrity" and "their right to participate in any decision concerning them".
Meanwhile the first federal female genital mutilation case is being prosecuted in the United States, with defence lawyers planning to argue that FGM is a religious rite.
There has never been a successful prosecution for the FGM in the UK.
