ABSTRACT
Despite the CRC’s significant strides in advancing children’s human rights, it includes differing and at times conflicting indications of how to best serve children’s interests: (1) emphasis on parental discretion, (2) preference for state intervention, and (3) elucidating the child’s own voice. There is tension and discord between these approaches, especially in complex cases. This chapter focuses on the lack of clear guidance regarding the permissibility of childhood circumcision. While female circumcision in all its forms is widely decried, male circumcision is largely accepted, although it is causing increasing concern across the globe. I offer a relational account of children’s rights to help provide more guidance, arguing that the amount of interference with ongoing parental relationships should be balanced against the level of harm inflicted on the child, as well as the age of the child and that child’s own perspective. Accordingly, I suggest that childhood circumcision should be banned only when involving significant harm and when a child objects, but that in other cases, the state should educate and work with communities to ensure safe practices that minimize harm.
