BERMUDA (Monday, January 22, 2001) – An Amnesty International Section Director who is also a Bermudian Human Rights Commissioner has called the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC)’s new revised policy on Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) “discriminatory” and “absolutely misguided.”

“The Commission is not fulfilling its obligation to promote the indivisibility of human rights,” said LeYoni Junos, Director of the Bermuda Section of Amnesty International in Hamilton, Bermuda and a Commissioner on the Bermuda Human Rights Commission. “If the mutilation of the genitals of females is considered to be a violation then it is a given principle that the same would apply to the male. But in reality, seemingly because of the cultural blinders on some of the individuals that are implementing these principles, there is some kind of reluctance to give male genital mutilation [MGM] full recognition. This is purely cultural bias.”

Ms. Junos’s comments come just three days after OHRC Chief Commissioner Keith Norton wrote that the commission’s revised policy on FGM is “a far cry from expressing a concern about male circumcision as a human rights issue,” and that the “commission has not taken a position against male circumcision.” Junos agrees with Canadian groups who complained that the OHRC’s revised FGM policy does not go far enough, and should extend equal protection to males without discrimination.

Until last week, the OHRC’s policy on FGM said male circumcision caused no damage to the penis, presented minimal danger, and did not negatively affect male sexuality. The revised policy removes those false claims, but does not protect males. The revised FGM policy was, in part, the response to a complaint from Toronto physician Dr. Arif Bhimji. The doctor had asked the OHRC to protect males against circumcision in the same way it protects females.

Bhimji wrote a 33-page submission to the OHRC on the medical, ethical and legal arguments against male circumcision, and met with Chief Commissioner Keith Norton. The Commission failed to adopt a policy on male genital mutilation (MGM), but removed inaccurate information from its FGM policy. “I think I would have liked to have seen it be more affirmative than it is,” Dr. Bhimji said. “But I think it is a reasonable intermediate step to correct misinformation.”

Junos said the revised policy marks a failure to apply international human rights standards without discrimination on the basis of sex. Junos said male circumcision in Canada “fully qualifies as a human rights violation” because “it removes highly sexually sensitive erotic tissue, and has the effect of compromising the sexuality of the [male] individual.”

“Unless the [OHRC’s] policy reflects no distinction on the basis of sex, it doesn’t go far enough,” Junos said. “The Ontario commission should have a policy on genital mutilation and sexual integrity of human beings without distinction. The object of my comments is not to alienate the commission, but to get them to see the light.”

Last Wednesday, in a statement to The National Post, Ms. Pearl Eliadis, the OHRC’s director of policy and education, defended the revised FGM policy, and said: “But it doesn’t change the fact that [FGM] is a procedure used to subjugate women as a gender. It is used to suppress women’s sexuality, it is grossly violative, and it creates gender specific problems in a way that male circumcision has never been used. It has never been used as a social tool to subjugate men.”

“This is an absolutely misguided statement,” Junos responded to Eliadis’s remarks. “The fact is that circumcision and other forms of male genital mutilation (MGM) have been used to suppress men’s sexuality and subjugate men, but this fact is not well known. You only need to look at medical journals of the 1800s and early 1900s, and you can find innumerable references to circumcision being performed on young boys to prevent masturbation. I’ll be quite happy to send Ms. Eliadis the articles that show that British and North American male children were being circumcised without anaesthetic deliberately so that they would associate it with being punished for masturbation. I would completely disagree that male circumcision is not ‘grossly violative.’ This is all part of controlling sexuality. I believe that once society realizes that the origin of a practice is to control and subjugate, then that practice should definitely cease. That is at least one good reason to stop.”

Junos has compiled a 24-page education document entitled, “Male Genital Mutilation: A Human Rights Information Pack” that she circulated to delegates from 100 countries at the August 1999 International Council Meeting of Amnesty International in Portugal. Drawing on vast historical, medical and international law documents, the pack argues the case for equal protection of males.

Junos said the absence of a policy against male circumcision reveals the OHRC’s blindness to the similar origins and uses of FGM and MGM. “When you look at different cultures, all the same arguments for male infant circumcision are also used for FGM, and vice-versa. Like many cultural practices, once their origins are forgotten, it [MGM] becomes a traditional practice and people forget that its original purpose was to subjugate men. Whatever the intent then or now, its effect is to damage the [male] victim’s sexual sensitivity. I can’t speak to why doctors are doing it today, but in the 1800s and early 1900s doctors knew exactly why they were circumcising – which was to subjugate and control male sexuality. That is what the medical profession has inherited, whether they like it or not. The sexual desensitization of the penis has become shrouded in history.”

Junos describes herself as a feminist, and said “people feel more comfortable with what I am saying about male genital mutilation if they understand that.” As Director of the Bermuda Section of Amnesty International, she also heads the Women and Children’s Group, which focuses on the international rights of women and children. As a Commissioner for the Bermuda Human Rights Commission, she is a member of the Research and Education Committee and is currently producing a report on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).

Junos said these discriminatory approaches to genital integrity are “sexist” and perhaps endanger international movements against FGM. “To go to another country and tell them to stop doing FGM while saying nothing about MGM is a cultural imposition and a double standard. And many of the people who practice FGM see it this way too. The women who circumcise are being rapped on the knuckles and we’re saying, ‘What you’re doing is barbaric and you need to stop’. But the men who are circumcising – and there are male victims who are dying as well – are being told, ‘You just need to upgrade and sanitize your practice. Just use a clean razorblade with each one.’ This is not only confusing, it is also sexist. I believe it is going to be more difficult to eradicate FGM when you are sending a mixed message.”

“This is an embarrassment for Canada,” said Lawrence Barichello, Executive Director of Intact, a Toronto-based group dedicated to ending medicalized male infant circumcision. “We’re supposed to have one of the finest human rights records in the world, but the OHRC is damaging our reputation abroad. We’re getting an ‘F’ on the international report card for failing to protect males.”

Barichello said he admires the “courage and integrity of Junos’s effort to end the neglect of male genital mutilation” – what he calls a “glaring sin of omission.” “In our country,” he said, “every 15 minutes, a baby boy has his foreskin forcibly and unnecessarily cut off. That is a human rights disgrace that we can no longer ignore.”

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