Dhaka: A group of United Nations and international human rights experts have called for an urgent end to human rights violations against intersex children and adults.

They urged governments to prohibit harmful medical practices on intersex children, including unnecessary surgery and treatment without their informed consent, and sterilisation.

The UN rights experts made the call while speaking ahead of Intersex Awareness Day that falls on October 26, according to a message received here from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on Monday.

Intersex people are born with physical or biological sex characteristics that do not fit the typical definitions for male or female bodies. For some intersex people these traits are apparent at birth, while for others they emerge later in life, often at puberty.

In countries around the world, intersex infants, children and adolescents are subjected to medically unnecessary surgeries, hormonal treatments and other procedures in an attempt to forcibly change their appearance to be in line with societal expectations about female and male bodies.

When, as is frequently the case, these procedures are performed without the full, free and informed consent of the person concerned, they amount to violations of fundamental human rights.

States should investigate human rights violations against intersex people, hold those found guilty of perpetrating such violations accountable and provide intersex people subjected to abuse with redress and compensation, said the UN experts.

Ending these abuses will also require States to raise awareness of the rights of intersex people, to protect them from discrimination on ground of sex characteristics, including in access to healthcare, education, employment, sports and in obtaining official documents, as well as special protection when they are deprived of liberty, they observed.

‘They should also combat the root causes of these violations such as harmful stereotypes, stigma and pathologisation and provide training to health professionals and public officials, including legislators, the judiciary and policy-makers.’

Parents of children with intersex traits often face pressure to agree to such surgeries or treatments on their children.

They are rarely informed about alternatives or about the potential negative consequences of the procedures, which are routinely performed despite a lack of medical indication, necessity or urgency.

Juan Méndez, Dainius Pῡras, Dubravka Šimonoviæ and Marta Santos Pais are among the experts.