Open Letter - Petition for the Protection of Intersex Children
In June 2021, a resolution on the protection of intersex children was passed in parliament. After that, VIMÖ was part of an interdisciplinary working group at the Ministry of Justice to draft a bill. The draft has now been as good as ready for about a year - but unfortunately it has still not been introduced in the National Council by the coalition. VIMÖ is concerned that time is running out and that a next government might be less open to the issue.
Therefore, pressure is now to be exerted with an open letter & a petition. We support the project and have already signed.
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OPEN LETTER
Dear Federal Minister Johannes Rauch,
Dear Federal Minister Dr. Alma Zadić, L.L.M,
dear Federal Minister MMag.a Dr.in Susanne Raab,
Dear Federal Government
Austria is in default in the protection of intersex children and adolescents.
In Pride Month June 2021, the National Council called on you to close legal gaps in the protection of intersex children and adolescents. To this day, intersex children and adolescents or children and adolescents with variations of sexual characteristics (VdG) experience non-necessary medical interventions, which they cannot consent to due to their young age. To this day, this causes great suffering for these children and young people, their parents and relatives.
The lack of protection for intersex children and adolescents has a long and inglorious history in Austria.
Austria has already been reprimanded several times by international organisations. In 2020, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child called on Austria to ban non-emergency and non-consensual medical interventions and treatments on children. The Committee explicitly stated that this was a "harmful practice" and referred to the statements of the UN Committee against Torture (CAT). The CAT, in turn, already reprimanded Austria in 2015 for such practices, which it classified as cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in the sense of the UN Convention against Torture. Numerous other UN organisations, the Council of Europe, the European Parliament as well as the EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child (2021- 2024) and the European Commission's LGBTIQ Equality Strategy 2020-2025 call for an end to harmful medical interventions on intersex children. Most recently, UN member states Uruguay, Argentina, Malta and Iceland called on Austria to protect children from non-emergency interventions on their sexual characteristics in the course of the Human Rights Council's human rights review ("Universal Periodic Review"). Austria has accepted these demands, but remains tardy in their implementation.
There are numerous international role models. Austria must not bring up the rear.
Other European countries such as Malta, Greece, Portugal or Germany have already passed a law in recent years to protect intersex children and adolescents or children and adolescents with variaMons of the sex characteristics (VdG). Austria must not bring up the rear here - that would damage the reputation of the Republic, which has committed itself to the protection of children's and human rights in numerous international treaties. Intersex children and adolescents must finally be effectively protected also in Austria.
We demand a law for the protection of intersex children and adolescents!
We therefore call on you: Protect intersex children and adolescents from non-necessary interventions at a young age! Follow the mandate of the National Council and propose a law for the protection of intersex children and adolescents!
