Twelfth International Symposium
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The Twelfth International Symposium on Law, Genital Autonomy, and Human Rights convened at the Radison Blu Royal Hotel in Helsinki, Finland on September 30 through October 3, 2012.
Faculty
- Sami Aldeeb Abu-Sahlieh, Christian of Palestinian origin, and Swiss citizen, is a Doctor in Law (Fribourg), graduated in political sciences (Geneva), trained to direct research (HDR, Bordeaux 3), and a Professor of Universities (CNU-France). He was responsible for Arab and Islamic Law at the Swiss Institute of Comparative Law (1980-2009). He is a visiting professor in different French, Italian, and Swiss universities. He is the Director of the Centre of Arab and Islamic Law, author of more than thirty books and many articles on Arab and Islamic Law, including a French translation of the Koran in chronological order, and is now finishing Italian and English translations of the Koran. He is the author of the largest book in Arabic on the male and female circumcision religious, medical, social, and legal debate among Jews, Christians and Muslims, translated into English and French. See his website: www.sami-aldeeb.com for an article in English about him in Wikipedia and his CV in English.
- Peter Ball, MA, MB, BChair, a retired family practitioner, is Vice Chair of NORM-UK and an Intactivist. He has produced a video, Restoration in Focus, to aid men interested in non-surgical restoration and has represented NORM-UK on television and numerous radio stations, including the BBC. Tunbridge Wells, Kent, UK.
- John Dalton, BSc, MSc, CRadP is a Safety and Environment consultant working in the nuclear sector. He is a member of one of the UK Health Research Agency’s Research Ethics Committees and a founder Trustee of NORM-UK. Recently he has become a Trustee of Genital Autonomy, and he has had an active role in planning the symposium. Cumbria, UK.
- Brian Earp is a Research Associate at the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford, where he conducts research in psychology, philosophy, and ethics. Brian’s undergraduate degree is from Yale University, where he was elected President of the Yale Philosophy Society and served as Editor-in-Chief of both the Yale Philosophy Review and the International Yale Review of Undergraduate Research in Psychology. His empirical research garnered the Robert G. Crowder Prize from the Department of Psychology, and received coverage by the BBC, New Scientist, and dozens of leading international newspapers, from the Times of India to the Sydney Morning Herald. Brian’s graduate training is from the University of Oxford, where he was a Henry Fellow at New College, and runner-up for the Demuth Prize in Science Writing. Currently, Brian is guest editing a special issue of the Journal of Medical Ethics on the topic of religiously motivated circumcision, and with the Chair of Practical Ethics at Oxford, Professor Julian Savulescu, is writing a book on the ethics of neuro-enhancement. Oxford, UK.
- Morten Frisch, MD, PhD, DSc (Med), is a full-time re-searcher at Statens Serum Institut in Copenhagen and an adjunct professor of sexual health epidemiology at Aalborg University, Denmark. For more than 20 years, he has studied sexual risk factors for and correlates of chronic diseases, as well as sociodemographic, health-related, and lifestyle-related determinants of sexual health and ill-health. In 2011, Frisch and co-authors published a study in the International Journal of Epidemiology showing a statistically significant excess of sexual problems in circumcised men and their spouses. That study has obtained substantial international attention and was the most heavily debated scientific study during the heated circumcision debate in Denmark in the summer of 2012. Copenhagen, Denmark.
- John Geisheker, JD, LLM, a native of New Zealand, is the Executive Director of Doctors Opposing Circumcision (D.O.C.), an international non-profit organization based in Seattle, Washington. As Director of D.O.C., he appears at medical and childbirth conventions, as well as educational institutions, presenting on the medical science, bioethics, and legality of merely cultural, non-therapeutic infant genital surgeries. He is the author of numerous publications on the subject. Mr. Geisheker has been a litigator, law lecturer, arbitrator, and mediator, specializing in medical disputes, for 30 years. He is proud that, in the 1960s, his native New Zealand fully abandoned medicalized infant circumcision as unnecessary-with no detectable loss of child health. Seattle, Washington, USA.
- Tim Hammond, Director, National Organization to Halt the Abuse and Routine Mutilation of Males, and Director, Whose Body, Whose Rights? Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
- Pia Henttonen, MD, MSW, is a sex educator and sexual health promoter. She is the Project Manager of “Mother does not quite understand,” of The Finnish Association for Persons with Intellectual Disabilities, which is funded, 2010-2014, by the Finnish Slot Machine Association. The project is targeted at families having a parent with an intellectual disability or a wide range of learning disabilities. The mission of The Finnish Association for Persons with Intellectual Disabilities is to provide support for its members, to protect and develop the social equality and rights of the intellectually disabled and their families, and to promote its members’ quality of life. Tampere, Finland.
- Frederick M. Hodges, Dphil (Oxon), is a medical historian, the co-author of What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Circumcision: Untold Facts on America’s Most Widely Performed-and Most Unnecessary-Surgery (Warner Books 2002), and co-editor of the proceedings of the International Symposia on Circumcision, including Sexual Mutilations: A Human Tragedy; Male and Female Circumcision: Medical, Legal and Ethical Considerations in Pediatric Practice; Understanding Circumcision: A MultiDisciplinary Approach to a MultiDimensional Problem; Flesh and Blood: Perspectives on the Problem of Circumcision in Contemporary Society; Bodily Integrity and the Politics of Circumcision, Culture, Controversy, and Change, Circumcision and Human Rights; Genital Autonomy: Protecting Personal Choice, and The Rights of the Child: Ensuring Every Child’s Fundamental Right to Body Ownership and Protection from Medical, Cultural, and Religious Infringements (In press, Springer). Berkeley, California, USA.
- Staffan Janson is a Swedish paediatrician, Professor of Public Health at Karlstad University and in Social Paediatrics at the University of Örebro, Sweden. He is head of the Committee on Ethics and Children’s Rights within the Swedish Paediatric Association. His research has mainly concentrated on child abuse and neglect and to the prevention of child injuries. Örebro, Sweden.
- Julius Kaggwa is Director of Support Initiative for People with atypical sex Development (SIPD), a project working to promote human rights protection and holistic support for intersex children and adults. He is also a lead player of the civil society coalition on human rights and constitutional law, which is at the forefront of campaigning against the anti-homosexuality bill that was recently tabled before the Ugandan parliament. Born and raised in Uganda, Julius is a human rights advocate who has done extensive independent research in the fields of genders and sexualities, as well as engaged widely in advocating for the human rights of intersex people and other sexual minorities in Uganda and throughout Africa. While SIPD’s main offices are located in Kampala, our work is community-based and we are currently working in 25 districts of Uganda scattered across the Central, Eastern, Northern, and Western regions of the country. Julius is commended for his sensitive and professional approach to community engagement and education on matters of sexuality, sexual diversity, sexual health, and gender identities from a human rights perspective. Kampala, Uganda, Africa.
- Maarit Kuoppala, MSc, has been a volunteer breastfeeding-support mother and lactivist since 1997. She is the Executive Director of the Breastfeeding Support Association in Finland. Espoo, Finland.
- Malla Laiti is the Planning Coordinator in Regional Administery State. She is working at Roma affairs in Southern Finland. This area shelters about half the Roma people in Finland. Vantaa, Finland.
- Martti Laiti, a sales manager in the metal industry,was born near the Norwegian border in North Finland. He is the husband of Malla Laiti. Vantaa, Finland.
- Donna Rigney Macris, RN, CNM, is a decades-long human rights activist in issues of genital integrity. She has served on the Board of Directors of NOCIRC, was a co-founder of the International Symposia on Circumcision, and co-authored the Declaration of the First International Symposium on Circumcision. Her writings on the issue of circumcision, the rights of infants and children, and the functions of male genitalia have been published. She has spoken nationally and internationally, promoting conscientious objector status for nurses and midwives in opposition to newborn circumcision. She has been guest faculty in midwifery programs, including Stanford University’s Women’s Health Care Training Project. Her Master’s Degree Research at St. Louis University centered upon informed consent for circumcision. Fresno, California, USA.
- Paul Mason has worked for more than three decades as a family law solicitor and barrister. He was Commissioner for Children for the Australian State of Tasmania 2007-2010. The Commissioner is an appointment notionally independent of the elected Government, responsible for advising it about all matters concerning children and raising public awareness about them. He is deeply committed to the human rights of children and a strong believer in their capacity to make intelligent contributions to all decisions affecting themselves. In 2009, he became, with Dr. Comfort Momoh, MBE, inaugural co-Patron of the international charity Genital Autonomy. Hobart, Tasmania, Australia.
- Finnish Mother is a strong supporter of human rights and sexual integrity. Most of all, she is the mother of a little boy who was circumcised illegally by his father and a senior physician. Helsinki, Finland.
- Marilyn Milos, RN, is the co-founder and Executive Director of the National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource Centers (NOCIRC) and the co-founder and coordinator of the International Symposia on Circumcision, now known as the International Symposia on Law, Genital Autonomy, and Children’s Rights. She is the co-editor of The Truth Seeker (July/August 1989 ”Crimes of Genital Mutilation” issue), the core proceedings of the First International Symposium on Circumcision, and co-editor of eight symposia books (see Hodges bio, page 3). San Anselmo, California, USA.
- Mulki Mölsä, MD, is a researcher at the National Institute for Health and Welfare. Helsinki, Finland.
- Husein Muhammed, born in 1980 in Iraqi Kurdistan, is a Finnish lawyer, Green politician, and author of Yhtä erilaiset (Equally Different), a book introducing Finnish Muslims. He has previously worked as a lawyer for the Finnish Refugee Advice Center, especially assisting asylum seekers. Currently he is a senior officer at the Office of the Ombudsman for Minorities. Helsinki, Finland.
- Jussi Nissinen is a psychotherapist and the Executive Director of the Sexpo Foundation. Helsinki, Finland.
- Sirkka Pietiläinen, RN, RM, MSc (Health care), is a midwife at the Metropolia University of Applied Sciences, Senior Lecturer, MSC, and Specialist on Sexological Counselling. Helsinki, Finland.
- Olli Pohjakallio earned his law degree in 1987 and then worked in law offices and as a judge in the City Court of Helsinki. Since 1995, he has practiced civil law in his own office, Advise, in Helsinki, Finland. That same year, he finished his post graduate diploma of International Master of Laws. In his practice, he has represented several clients in relation to sex crimes and child custody matters. Attorney Olli Pohjakallio has been lecturing about sex crimes in Sexpo Foundation since 2004. He has been a member of the board since 2007. This year, he was elected Vice Chairman of the Board. Helsinki, Finland.
- Suvi and Eero Poussu are an entrepeneurial couple living in Hämeenlinna, Finland.
- Lyn Ramsay, RN, BHSc (Nursing), MHSc (Primary Health Care) is an Australian human services consultant. She has been a passionate advocate for the rights of children with disability since she registered as a nurse specialising in the area in 1972. She was a lecturer at Southern Cross University in disabilities, natural therapies, holistic health, and spiritual well-being. She has worked in cities and rural areas with people with all forms of disability, as well as indigenous people, other social minorities, and people across the life span from babyhood to death. She consciously detoured off the information highway and does not register on Google, Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn! Hobart, Tasmania, Australia.
- Mark Reiss, MD, retired radiologist, Coordinator, Brit Shalom Celebrant List. San Francisco, California, USA.
- Jonna Roos, MS, is a sex educator working currently at the University of Helsinki, Palmenia, Centre for Continuing Education. He has been training immigrants as well as people in their workplaces for many years and in many different places. Helsinki, Finland.
See also
- 1989: First International Symposium on Circumcision
- 1991: Second International Symposium on Circumcision
- 1994: Third International Symposium on Circumcision
- 1996: Fourth International Symposium on Sexual Mutilations
- 1998: Fifth International Symposium on Sexual Mutilations
- 2000: Sixth International Symposium on Genital Integrity
- 2002: Seventh International Symposium on Human Rights and Modern Society
- 2004: Eighth International Symposium on Circumcision and Human Rights
- 2006: Ninth International Symposium on Circumcision, Genital Integrity, and Human Rights
- 2008: Tenth International Symposium on Circumcision, Genital Integrity, and Human Rights
- 2010: Eleventh International Symposium on Circumcision, Genital Integrity, and Human Rights
- 2012: Twelfth International Symposium on Law, Genital Autonomy, and Human Rights
- 2014: Thirteenth International Symposium on Genital Autonomy and Children's Rights
- 2016: Fourteenth International Symposium on Genital Autonomy and Children's Rights
- 2018: Fifteenth International Symposium on Genital Autonomy and Children's Rights
- 2022: Sixteenth International Symposium on Child Genital Cutting