Join intersex-led organisations from across the world and affirm a civil society statement calling upon States to end harmful practices against intersex persons

Civil society organisations are calling on States to ban unconsented, medically unnecessary surgeries and other invasive medical interventions on intersex infants and children. They will also be calling on the UN Human Rights Council to conduct a global investigation on these serious human rights violations.

Your organisation can now join them, too!

Follow this link to sign-on the global civil society statement before 20 September 2022

Please note that the sign-on is available only to organisations, either intersex-led or not

Why is this important?

Intersex people are born with variations of sex characteristics that don’t fit social and biomedical expectations of male or female bodies, and that are perceived in ways that create risks and experiences of stigma, violence, discrimination, and harm.
 
In most countries around the world, intersex infants and children are routinely subjected to unnecessary treatments, surgeries, and other interventions without their personal free and informed consent. The impacts of these practices – and their framing as human rights violations and abuses – have been highlighted by different human rights mechanisms, but concrete actions must follow.

What can you do?

In 2020, a cross-regional group of 37 states delivered a joint statement at the UN Human Rights Council calling on States to protect the human rights of intersex persons. Following up on this, a similar joint statement was delivered one year later on behalf of 53 states.

While the intersex civil society welcomes these collective calls, violence and harmful practices against intersex people continue to occur. Supportive words must be followed by actions.

Currently, 71 intersex-led groups from across the world have thrown their support behind a civil society statement calling upon the UN Human Rights Council, as a matter of urgency, to conduct

“… a global investigation of these serious human rights violations against intersex persons”

and on States to

“…ban unconsented, non-vital, medically unnecessary surgeries, forced hormonal treatments, and other invasive or irreversible non-vital medical interventions in infants and children as a criminal act”

Your organisation can affirm and support this statement, too!
Follow this link to read and sign on the statement.

The image is made of two rounded frame, one in yellow and the other in purple to reproduce the colours of the intersex flag.
Text reads: “End violence and harmful practices against intersex infants and children - Take action now: join the civil society statement"

Read also: Intersex joint civil society statement on violence, discrimination, and harmful practices against intersex people (2021)