FLORIDA: Last charge dropped against mother of spite-circumcised son

the Palm Beach Post
February 20, 2017

Charges dropped against Boynton mom who fought son’s circumcision

by Daphne Duret
The case of the Boynton Beach mother arrested after she took her son on the run rather than let his father have him circumcised is now officially over.

Prosecutors dropped criminal charges against 32-year-old Heather Hironimus weeks ago after she completed an 18-month program to keep the state from pursuing the case that could have landed her in prison for up to five years.

Hironimus became the subject of national attention after Florida’s 4th District Court of Appeal upheld a ruling forcing Hironimus to go through with a 2012 agreement she had signed allowing the boy’s father, Dennis Nebus of Boca Raton, to have their son circumcised. When she later changed her mind about the agreement, Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Jeffrey Gillen ruled to enforce the agreement anyway.

Hironimus took her then 4½-year-old son away in early 2015, a violation of a civil court order requiring her to turn him over to Nebus.

Authorities reunited the boy with his father after Hironumus was arrested in May of that year.

By then, Hironimus had won the praise of anti-circumcision groups around the country, who sparked a small protest outside Joe DiMaggio Children’s hospital after her arrest, when word leaked that Nebus may have taken the boy there to be circumcised. It is unclear when the boy was circumcised.

In July 2015, defense attorney Richard Tendler worked out an agreement with prosecutors on Hironimus’ behalf for her to enter a pretrial intervention program that included a mental heath evaluation, a four-hour parenting course and other provisions.

Assistant State Attorney Craig Williams filed a notice with Circuit Judge Glenn Kelley on Jan. 17 stating that Hironimus has successfully completed the program, so prosecutors would be dropping the single felony charge of interference with custody.

ZIMBABWE: Youth tries to cut off his own foreskin after being teased

Daily Mail (via NZ Herald)
January 18, 2016

Teen attempts circumcision with machete after being teased

A teenager was rushed to hospital in Zimbabwe when he attempted to circumcise himself using a machete after his friends mocked his penis.

The teen attempted the DIY circumcision using the nearest sharp object he could find after his friends told him he would not get a girlfriend because he still had his foreskin in tact.

The boy was rushed to St Luke's Mission Hospital in the country's Lupane District, where he spent two days recovering from the botched procedure, according to the Daily Mail.

Staff at the clinic also carried out the circumcision operation that the boy had attempted on himself.

A doctor said he did not understand why the boy had tried to circumcise himself as healthcare workers would have visited his house to perform the routine op.

Dr Nyasha Masuka, medical director of Matabeleland North Province, told news website My Zimbabwe: "It seems the other boys were laughing at him for not being circumcised so he used a machete to circumcise himself and he injured himself in the process.'

"He was rushed to St Lukes Hospital where the health staff circumcised him." [Would they have done that if he had attempted to cut any other part off?]
 
Dr George Mature, medical officer for Lupane district, said other patients at the hospital were 'shocked' that the boy had had the courage to take the weapon to his own penis. [No shock at the cowardice of the bullies who drove him to it?]
 
He said: "The patients who were admitted with him were wondering how he managed to do it.
"The good thing is that he wounded the outer layer of foreskin. So we had to keep him at the hospital to monitor him as he had used a clinically inappropriate tool so we were worried that it could have caused an infection."

The incident comes less than a month after a 10-year-old boy had the tip of his penis chopped off after a routine circumcision operation went horribly wrong.

The boy, who has not been named, was rushed to a hospital in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, after the incident at a clinic in a local suburb, which it is believed the surgeon's laser scalpel might have slipped.

CHILE: Officials oppose 'normalisation' surgery of intersex children

Washington Blade
January 11, 2016

Chilean officials oppose intersex children ‘normalization’ surgery

by Michael K. Lavers

The Chilean government has urged doctors in the South American country to no longer perform surgeries that “normalize” the sex of intersex children.

Undersecretary of Health Jaime Burrows and Undersecretary of Assistance Networks Gisela Alarcón in a document the Chilean Ministry of Health released last week expressed its opposition to “unnecessary ‘normalization’ treatments of intersex children” that include “irreversible genital surgeries until they are of a sufficient age to make decisions about their bodies.”

Camilo Godoy Peña, a Chilean LGBT rights advocate, on Jan. 8 noted on his Facebook page that the document, which is dated Dec. 22, also contains a series of recommendations for each branch of the country’s public health system. These include the creation of a round table of endocrinologists, gynecologists, psychiatrists and other specialists to determine “which action to take in each case” of an intersex child.

Godoy said this document is the first time the Chilean government has provided “clear instruction” on the treatment of intersex children.

“From this point forward there is a concrete tool to use to enforce the human rights of a group of people who have ‘been made invisible,’” he wrote on his Facebook page. “For decades they have been victims of violence, torture and ignorance.”

The Chilean government released its recommendations less than three months after Godoy presented a letter to President Michelle Bachelet that urged her government to do more to protect the rights of intersex people.

U.N. report critical of ‘involuntary genital normalizing surgery’
Opposition to what advocates have described as Intersex Genital Mutilation has increased in recent years.

The U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture in 2013 issued a report that notes intersex children who undergo “involuntary genital normalizing surgery” face “permanent, irreversible infertility” and “severe mental suffering.” The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights are among the other international bodies that have expressed concern over the treatment of intersex people.

Lawmakers in Malta last year approved a bill that bans doctors from performing “surgical intervention on the sex characteristics of a minor” until he or she can provide “informed consent.”

A Maryland law that allows intersex people to legally change the gender on their birth certificates without surgery took effect last October. German parents since 2013 have been able to designate the gender on their children’s birth certificates as “indeterminate.”

An Irish law that allows transgender people to legally change their gender without medical intervention took effect last September. Advocates have criticized the statute because it does not include intersex people.

EASTERN CAPE: Death Toll at 23

Xin Hua
December 15, 2016

Deaths from botched circumcision climb to 23 in S. Africa

CAPE TOWN, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- At least 23 people have died from botched circumcision during the summer initiation season in South Africa, authorities said Wednesday.

The deaths occurred despite the "Zero Deaths" campaign launched by the government, the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs said ...

In winter and summer initiation seasons of 2015, approximately 101 initiates lost their lives, most in the Eastern Cape, and in the last 10 years there has been an estimated 1,000 penile amputations.

MALAYSIA: Boy loses penis-head in botched medical cutting

The Star Online (Malaysia)
December 27, 2016

Boy loses penis during botched laser circumcision

by Jastin Ahmad Tarmizi

KAJANG: A routine circumcision for a 10-year-old boy went horribly wrong when his penis was severed during a laser-based procedure at a clinic in Taman Cheras Utama here.

It is learnt that the incident occurred at about 8.15pm on Dec 20 at the clinic during the surgery, which was performed using a laser scalpel.

Soon after the procedure, the doctor told the father of the boy that he had accidentally cut off the head of his son's penis.

The boy was rushed to the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Hospital (HUKM), which then referred him to the Kuala Lumpur Hospital (HKL) for surgery to reattach the head of his penis.

The father of the boy lodged a police report at HKL upon advice from a doctor there.

It is learnt that the doctor who performed the initial surgery has 21 years of experience and is a graduate from the University of Karachi in Pakistan.

It is learnt that the clinic, which has been operating for 15 years, is not registered with the Health Ministry.

The doctor has since lodged a report over the incident, admitting that an accident had occurred during the procedure.

When contacted, Kajang OCPD Asst Comm Othman Nanyan confirmed that the incident had indeed taken place.

KENYA: Boy faces loss of his penis after botched medical cutting

Standard Digital
December 25, 2016

Boy fights for manhood after botched circumcision

by Dalton Nyabund
A 10-year-old boy risks losing his genitals after a medical circumcision went awry.

In a classic case of professional negligence, doctors now say [name] from [place] may require grafting, following botched circumcision at Vihiga County Hospital.

When The Standard on Sunday visited the Standard Four pupil and his mother at Kisumu’s St Monica Hospital where he had been referred to yesterday, he was in great pain as doctors tried to treat the wound.

A tube connected to his crotch leads to a tube sitting between his legs. The urinary catheter is perhaps the only indication that all is not well with the cheerful boy with a singsong voice.

Dr Hillary Awuor, St Monica Hospital’s administrator, says the only way to save the genital now is through grafting, but the wound must first be treated. He said the penis had lost sensation.

“The grafting cannot be done on a raw wound. The wound has to show some signs of healing and resolution,” said Awour.

Grafting in this case is a surgical procedure where skin will be removed from one part of [name]’s body and used to replace the damaged penile skin.

Dr Awuor said although there are complications associated with this kind of surgery. The surgeon was hopeful that it would work.

The boy’s mother, [name], said she walked into Vihiga County Hospital with her son on November 2 and paid Sh1, 000 for a procedure most of his agemates in Luhya land were undergoing bravely.

The nurse who performed the surgery wrongly sliced the foreskin and as soon as the procedure was complete, the wound started swelling. But, the nurse dismissed this as normal and prescribed a few drugs that would take care of it.

PUS OZZING
It occurred to Ms [name] that her only child may have been wrongly sliced when the other boys were healing, yet her son’s was becoming septic with pus oozing from the sinuses around the penis.

“He cried throughout the process and the nurse said it was normal. The next day his penis started swelling and two days later, it developed blisters but the nurse kept telling me it was normal. He just asked me to give him the drugs he had prescribed,” narrated Ms [name].

About a month later, the wound was getting worse. The pain the boy felt on his crotch had suddenly died down. The wound was rotting. So she went back to the same hospital to seek further care and answers.

She was referred to a surgeon of the hospital who agreed that the procedure was wrongly done. The wound had developed dead debris and smelly, abnormal growth around it.

[name] was immediately admitted to the surgical ward, awaiting a corrective surgery. But since the wound was septic, the surgeon first cleaned it and removed the dead tissue, a process called debridement.

She was directed to bathe him with warm, salty water for four days for the wound to heal before the plastic surgery could be done.

On December 5 when the surgery was due, however, doctors in public hospitals downed tools and they were abandoned.

KENYA: Knife-rapists go door-to-door

Citizen Digital
December 15, 2016

Circumcisers in Kuria embark on door-to-door forceful circumcision

by George Juma For Citizen Digital

Police in Kuria East Sub County have vowed to take punitive measures against elders and circumcisers in the region who have embarked on a door-to-door forceful traditional cut for both males and females. ["Forceful circumcision" is a double euphemism. It would be better called "rape by knife".]
 
The circumcisers and the elders, also known as Wazee wa Kimila, reportedly move door-to-door fishing out the girls and boys who are yet to face the cut and ferrying them forcefully for circumcision at established places.

Speaking to Citizen Digital, Kuria East Sub County Deputy County Commissioner Mr Westly Koech said that so far they have arrested several people linked to the outlawed exercise during their ongoing anti-FGM operations in the region.

On Monday, Mr Koech said they arrested three suspects who were found moving door-to-door harassing the family of the uncircumcised individuals and have put them behind bars.

He said the group of circumcisers and the elders are crisscrossing the sub county on a motorbike looking for uncircumcised people and forcing them to undergo the cut.

The DCC said old men who had been circumcised at health facilities are also being forced to undergo the traditional cut, adding that police on Monday rescued an old man who was being ferried on a motorcycle for circumcision.

Mr Koech has issued a stern warning to the circumcisers and any other person linked to FGM in Kuria or forceful circumcision for men in the region saying that they are not going to spare them in the ongoing crackdown in the region.

He further faulted the victims of such harassment saying that most of them are not willing to come to the station to record statements to enable police to take action. He, however, assured that they are pursuing the suspects.