S P E C I F I C S U G G E S T I O N S

  ASSESS

If you’re a student or a teacher, evaluate your health and/or human sexuality textbooks for accuracy and completeness in their treatment of male anatomy and circumcision. NOHARMM can help you to prepare a letter offering constructive criticism to the author and publisher.

Find out if your local college libraries have the video Whose Body, Whose Rights? in their collections. If not, suggest that they order it.

What exactly is in your public library? Request that it buy books and videos listed on this site. If there's no follow through in a reasonable period of time, then buy the items yourself and donate them to the library. [Important: Specify that these items are for the "circulating collection," otherwise the items might get relegated to the library’s book sale collection.]

Investigate whether your health insurer pays for infant circumcision. If they don’t pay, congratulate them for not paying for non-essential surgeries. If they do pay, educate them about the lack of medical indication, the costs involved and its adverse consequences. Let NOHARMM know how we can help you, and remember to report your findings to us.

Inquire what the local circumcision statistics are at your local hospitals. Share them with NOHARMM.

Include these banners on your website to promote educational videos and restoration devices.

Utilize the arts (music, acting, sculpture, painting, poetry, photography, film/video) to convey the harm of genital mutilation or the message of children’s rights to genital integrity.

Buy thick sticks of chalk (available at large toy store chains) and write genital integrity messages on smooth cement, the backs of wooden park benches, or other surfaces. Suggested messages include (but are not limited to):

• Circumcision: Cut the crap, not the baby
• Infant circumcision violates children's rights
• Circumcision: Whose Body, Whose Rights?
• What's wrong with cutting off part of a baby's penis?
• Got foreskin?  No?  Get angry!
• Ethical doctors oppose circumcision
• Every human male and female is born with a foreskin. Do you have a foreskin or a scar?
• What sound does a circumciser make?  Quack!
• Circumcisers make blood money.

March for children’s genital integrity rights in parades marking Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, peace and justice events, gay pride events, women’s actions, animal rights, etc.

Organize a local demonstration for children's basic human right to physical integrity and self-determination. Choose your target(s) wisely and make sure that all participants understand the Non-Violence Guidelines and receive a copy of the Non-Violence Agreement. Contact NOHARMM if you would like planning assistance.

If the circumcision rates at one or more local hospitals in your area are high, or if you've asked the hospitals to adopt the Mother-Friendly Childbirth Initiative and they've refused, or if they have adopted the Initiative but they still have a high circumcision rate, demonstrate (alone or with others) to inform the public about these unnecessary surgeries. Make sure that all participants understand the Non-Violence Guidelines and receive a copy of the Non-Violence Agreement. Contact NOHARMM if you would like planning assistance.

  DISCUSS

Break the silence! Talk with friends, family, and co-workers about circumcision, restoration and children's rights to genital integrity.

Hold discussions within your religious community about circumcision and the rights of children. Work to convene a task force to study the issue. Get your religious leaders to make statements of support for children’s rights to physical integrity.

Bring this issue up for discussion in other groups you may belong to (Amnesty International, Physicians for Human Rights, Lions Club, Kiwanis, LaLeche League, etc.). Ask for a task force to study the issue.

Call a radio or television talk show and raise the topic of genital integrity - or add your comments about genital integrity issues whenever the discussion is on male or female circumcision, children’s rights, men’s health, human sexuality, sexual dysfunctions, medical fraud, profiteering in medicine, people’s cultural blindness, etc.

Invite the NOHARMM Speakers Bureau to your:  school classes on human sexuality or male health; university men's studies programs; local men's groups; religious communities; community education forums; or special events. We also participate in radio and television interviews via telephone or satellite.

Work with your local hospital(s), birth center(s) or home birth services to adopt the Mother-Friendly Childbirth Initiative.

Educate and encourage the local political party to which you may belong to take a stand for children’s rights to physical integrity.

Adopt one or more of your political representatives and educate them about circumcision and the need to protect the physical integrity of all children (especially now that U.S. federal law protects the genital integrity of girls, but not boys).

If you work in the media, expose the medical and social "politics" behind circumcision advocacy. Contact NOCIRC or NOHARMM for details.

Donate often or pledge regularly to one or more of the organizations below.

Contribute at work to the organizations below through the United Way, Federal Combined Giving Campaign, or your employer’s Matching Gifts program.

Remember these organizations in your will with a bequest. Donations to most organizations are tax deductible.
    Attorneys for the Rights of the Child
Circumcision Information Resource Centre (InfoCirc/Canada)
Circumcision Resource Center
Doctors Opposing Circumcision
Jewish Associates of CRC
National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource Centers (NOCIRC)
National Organization of Restoring Men (NORM)
    National Organization to Halt the Abuse and Routine Mutilation of Males (NOHARMM)
Nurses for the Rights of the Child

Under 20? Join the National Child Rights Alliance. Attend their Youth Summits and organize a workshop to explore male circumcision as a children’s rights issue.

Belong to a local youth group? Raise the issue of infant male circumcision for discussion as yet another way adults abuse their power over children. Write an article for your group’s newsletter about how circumcision violates children’s rights to physical integrity and self-determination.

Join or start a local chapter of NOCIRC.

If you're a physician who wants to work with other professionals in your field to reduce the incidence of this medical custom, join Doctors Opposing Circumcision.

Become a member of Nurses for the Rights of the Child if you’re a nurse opposed to assisting with infant circumcision.

Join Attorneys for the Rights of the Child if you are an attorney interested in furthering recognition of children’s legal, constitutional and human rights.

Organize a public showing of Whose Body, Whose Rights? in your city. Buy a copy of the video and loan it to your local Public Television or public access cable station and ask them to consider airing it.

Start a local NORM group and create a supportive environment for other men in your area who want to regain their genital integrity.

Organize a genital integrity information booth at a street fair, block party, children's rally, or at events commemorating Earth Week, Men’s Health Week (June), Gay Pride, International Human Rights Day (10 December), International Children's Day (November), Martin Luther King, Jr. (February), etc.

Every time you visit your physician, take with you copies of updated medical journal articles on circumcision, alternative treatments, and/or restoration to share with him or her.

Buy a copy (or two) of Whose Body, Whose Rights? to loan to family and friends. (The video case displays an "800" ordering number so they too can buy their own copy and loan it out to even more friends and family.)

Visit NOHARMM's Online Bookstore and buy your friends and family members the gift of a book that you think they might find helpful or interesting.

Order a supply of Say No to Circumcision! and give copies to friends or family members who are expecting children.

Print and distribute the Non-Circumcision Notification Form & Instructions to people you know who are expecting a child. This valuable document is a legally binding notification that parents can use to reinforce their wishes to hospital staff.

Print out some of the resources listed in our Perspectives on Circumcision section and make copies for family and friends, or give them the URL so they can visit this section of our Website themselves.

Use fax, e-mail, photocopies, newsletters, t-shirts, buttons, bumperstickers, sidewalk chalking, etc. to broaden the children’s rights message. Spread empowering information!

Submit a harm documentation form to NOHARMM. You should further document this harm officially with your doctor and/or therapist. Ask them to include your circumcision-related problems in your records. Official documentation is crucial to the success of any litigation you might pursue.

Go to your local bookstore or library and evaluate recently published books on childbirth, men’s health or human sexuality. Submit a book evaluation form to NOCIRC/Illinois so that the books' authors/publishers can receive constructive criticism.

Avenge your circumciser.  Cut off part of his or her….income!    File a lawsuit.  See Know Your Rights!

Wear a pink and blue Genital Integrity Ribbon. See example on NOHARMM's Access Page.

Don a new look and ask the question that's on everybody's mind: Got Foreskin?

Vanity Plates! If your state/province permits personalized license plates for motor vehicles, and you can afford the extra fee, apply for one of these plates:  CIRP ORG , NORM ORG  or NOCIRC ORG (may exceed character limit in some states). Check first with those organizations to ask their permission: CIRP, NORM, NOCIRC

Write about genital mutilation and human rights for relevant organizational newsletters that you receive.

Offer to write a guest editorial for your local newspaper on the subject of circumcision and children’s rights.

Send letters about children’s rights to the editors of newspapers whenever they runs stories about male or female circumcision, children’s rights, men’s health, human sexuality, sexual dysfunctions, medical fraud, profiteering in medicine, people’s cultural blindness, etc.

If you're a student, write a class paper or an article for your school newspaper on the subject of circumcision, restoration or children’s rights.