The child’s right to genital integrity

Abstract

People in liberal societies tend to feel a little uncomfortable talking about male genital cutting, but generally do not think it is morally abhorrent. But female genital cutting is widely considered to be morally repulsive. This common social intuition – that male genital cutting is benign, but female genital cutting is impermissibly harmful – is mirrored in the policies of real-world liberal governments and real-world international liberal institutions. The difference in attitudes towards these practices could be explained by investigation into the cultural biases of people in liberal societies, where social preference is given to practices conducted by majority and established minority group members over those practised by members of marginalised groups. In this article, I argue that the intuition cannot be defended from a liberal position committed to equal children’s rights. I defend children’s equal right to bodily integrity. I claim that in practice children’s right to bodily integrity is conditional on it serving their greater interests – which sometimes require adults to interfere with children’s bodies in ways that we would not interfere with adults’ bodies. But, I argue, this practical conditionality ought not to mean that the state treat male and female children differently. I make a case for the child’s inviolable right to genital integrity, based on the relationship between the child’s genital integrity and their sexual and genital autonomy in adulthood. I outline and respond to potential criticisms, namely that (i) male genital cutting has medical benefits that outweigh its harms and that (ii) female genital cutting is more socially harmful than male genital cutting.