Intersex rights in Chile
Intersex rights in Chile 
|
|
|---|---|
.svg)
|
|
| Protection of physical integrity and bodily autonomy | No |
| Reparations | One legal case |
| Protection from discrimination | Pending |
| Rights by country | |
Between December 2015 and August 2016, the Chilean Ministry of Health issued a regulatory suspension of non-necessary cosmetic medical interventions on intersex children. The guidelines were replaced by guidance permitting intersex medical interventions.
In 2015, Chile briefly became the second country to protect intersex infants and children from unnecessary medical interventions, following Malta, however, the regulations were superseded the following year.
Chile also has an early example of legal reparations, awarded in the Benjamín-Maricarmen case in 2012.
In 2015, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child recommended that Chile recognize the rights of Chilean intersex children, and expressed concern "about cases of medically unnecessary and irreversible surgery and other treatment on intersex children":
49. In the light of its general comment No. 18 (2014) on harmful practices, adopted jointly with the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, the Committee recommends that the State party expedite the development and implementation of a rights-based health-care protocol for intersex children that sets the procedures and steps to be followed by health teams in order to ensure that no one is subjected to unnecessary surgery or treatment during infancy or childhood, protect the rights of the children concerned to physical and mental integrity, autonomy and self-determination, provide intersex children and their families with adequate counselling and support, including from peers, and ensure effective remedy for victims, including redress and compensation.
In January 2016, the Ministry of Health of Chile ordered the suspension of unnecessary normalization treatments for intersex children, including irreversible surgery, until they reach an age when they can make decisions on their own.
The instructions were published in Circular 8, 22 December 2015, entitled "Instructions on aspects of health care to intersex children". The circular instructs the ceasing of "unnecessary "normalization" treatment of intersex children, including irreversible genital surgeries, until they are old enough to decide about their bodies", while work takes place to develop protocols that meet human rights standards. The country became the second in the world to protect intersex children from harmful practices, after Malta.
However, the 2015 circular was revised and superseded by Circular 7 of 23 August 2016, which states that the earlier recommendation not to perform unnecessary genital surgeries does not apply to "pathologies" where sex can be clearly determined. It also does not apply in cases of congenital adrenal hyperplasia when professionals or the patient deem surgery necessary, and where a patient or their representative consents. In cases where either sex may be assigned, sex assignment and surgeries may be made by agreement between parents and multidisciplinary teams, also considering the possibility of defering surgeries to a time when a child has manifested a sexual identity. The guidelines are based on a 2006 clinical consensus document.
...
Wikipedia