- Written by Dani Arnold
In what could be a ground breaking announcement, on Nov 12 Honourable Jason Kenney, Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, announced the release of a new citizenship study guide to help newcomers and Canadians better understand Canada. In a section called “Equality of Women and Men” the guide states, that “barbaric” cultural practices such as female genital mutilation are illegal in Canada.
While the vast majority of Canadians will applaud the fact that the minister and our government are insuring that the fundamental rights of our female children are being protected by federal laws, we need to ask a serious question:
What about our sons?
Canada is a nation that is world renowned for its humanitarian efforts and its Charter of Human Rights. We are a diverse multicultural country, who’s citizens live secure in the knowledge that our fundamental rights are protected by the highest level of our legal system. In 1982, the Federal Government modified Canada’s Constitution in order to better reflect the human rights goals and standards set by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Government enacted a statute known as the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
This Charter is a binding legal document that protects the basic human rights of all Canadians and provides a list of the rights to which all Canadians are entitled and outlines the Government’s responsibility in upholding those rights. It prohibits discrimination on the grounds of race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, gender, age and mental or physical disability.
We are a Nation with the supreme right of EQUALITY.
So again I ask: What about our sons?
As the horrifying act of female genital mutilation is considered a “barbaric” cultural practice and legally banned in our country, we need to ask ourselves why the equally horrifying practice of male genital mutilation is still considered a social norm and one that parents are legally given the freedom to inflict on their newborn sons?
How can our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and our federal judicial system allow a custom to exist that so completely goes against all that the Charter stands for?
The Charter states: 15. (1) Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.
Is it not the legal responsibility of the Canadian government to protect the rights of all male children from genital mutilation equally as it would protect our female children? Yet male circumcision is still so common in our country that it happens without question or investigation.
The new guide published by Citizenship and Immigration Canada states that it is the responsibility of the police, doctors, teachers, and children’s aid workers to take action if they think children are being harmed, but I have yet to see an official investigation in to the circumcision of a baby boy.
Most of the population know the word “Circumcision” and think they know what is involved. However, having questioned many people it has become startlingly apparent that most do not have even a vague idea of the reality. Male circumcision involves the complete surgical removal of the foreskin from the penis. Circumcision removes as much as 80 percent or more of the penile skin. Depending on the foreskin’s length, removal can make the penis as much as 25 percent shorter. Careful anatomical investigations have shown that circumcision cuts off more than 20,000 nerve endings. The foreskin’s muscles, glands, mucous membrane, and epithelial tissue are also destroyed. Another fact that the vast majority of which the population is blithely unaware, is that only 4% of babies are give any form of anesthetic while this surgery is performed.
Recent studies published in leading medical journals report that circumcision has long-lasting detrimental effects on the developing brain. Developmental neuropsychologist Dr. James Prescott suggests that circumcision can also cause deeper and more disturbing levels of neurological damage. Circumcision carries risks of serious consequences, with a surgical complication rate of one in 500, including uncontrollable bleeding and fatal infections. Medical journals have published numerous accounts of babies who have had part or all of their glands removed during circumcision and of babies who have had their entire penis burned off with an electrocautery gun. (The September 1989 Journal of Urology published an account of four such cases. The article described the sex-change operation as “feminizing genito-plasty,” performed on these babies in an attempt to change them into girls).
ALL pain studies conducted on circumcision in the US and Canada have been closed before their final completion as a result of infant trauma. Indeed CNN reported on a study that found circumcision so traumatic that doctors ended the study early rather than subject any more babies to the operation without anesthesia.
How do we as a people allow this “Barbaric” practice to continue and to thrive? How do we allow our government to stand by and let the most fundamental Rights of our baby boys be tossed to the wayside in the name of “tradition”, “Customs” and “Religion”? What RIGHT do we, as parents, have to allow our sons to be physically tortured and have part of their penis amputated? According to Canadian Law, NONE. Yet it continues.
Before any parent or guardian subjects their new born sons to the knife, they need to do the research, and at the very least, look at what a circumcision really looks like. Then they should ask themselves if this is what they want to do to their child.
http://drmomma.blogspot.com/2009/09/birth-as-we-know-it-circumcision.html
