Jason Metters

Jason Metters 2019

Jason Metters is project manager of the British organization 15 Square which was named NORM-UK earlier.

In 2020 he spoke in a video message on WWDOGA:

“

Hi, my name's Jason and I am the project manager for the charity 15 Square. We are based in the UK and we work internationally with anyone who writes into us, (men or their families), who have been affected by circumcision whether that is psyhcologically or physically. I got involved with this organisation in 2016 after speaking with the Chief Officer during a visit to my hometown. We got talking and he told me about some of the disturbing stories associated with circumcision that had affected some of the men that the charity focussed on. As we got talking I got more and more interested because intuitively I had always assumed that there was something a bit strange about the practice of circumcision, especially when it was being done for non-medical reasons. I was always told that it has no physical effect and that there is no consequence to it. Obviously, having any form of surgery, (especially within that region), being forced upon you is something that I couldn't quite understand would be so flippantly disregarded. The more I actually learnt it actually got a lot more shocking as I heard the stories from some of the men and the boys that had been affected. One of the things that I did notice was that there was so much of their plight that was parallel to FGM, which I already knew quite a bit about as I have been involved with human rights for a long time. As I found out more I also realised that there has been a great stigma against people talking out about these things, because of the subject not being a mainstream palatable conversation to have. With there being so few people (at least in my background) who are aware of the issue, it was something that I wanted to tackle. As I got more and more involved as well, I learned about some of these problems that men were going through, but I feel like the cultural narrative has started to shift even in the time that I have been involved. There are now more and more international organisations, and people coming forward, and media outlets starting to listen to them bit by bit and I feel like the conversation is ready to be held. I was hoping to attend WWDOGA which is something that I fully support, and this year would have been my first time attending, but unfortunately we are in lockdown. Due to the fact that we are stuck in doors I think there is even more impact that our charity has seen with people getting in touch as it is an opportunity for people to try and get answers to their medical problems through the internet. As they do more and more research to maybe solve some of their problems, I am hoping that this will be an opportunity for them to come into contact with the subject and perhaps find alternatives to circumcision which is a last resort procedure especially after seeing some the stories that I have become familiar with. I am excited to be involved with an international audience and collaborate with some of the other charities out there who have been working to bring this to public attention, because it's about time we had this conversation. – Jason Metters (WWDOGA 2020)

External links

• Facebook profile. Retrieved 13 May 2020.