On 28 January 2014, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe held a special hearing on the right of children to physical integrity, focusing in particular on the issue of circumcision of male infants within Europe’s Jewish and Muslim communities. The panel convened for the hearing was composed of five speakers, including those representing the medical, Jewish and Muslim communities.

Participants were confronted with widely diverging opinions, divided between those speaking in favour of allowing religious parents to consent to the circumcision of their sons and those who argued that the child’s right to physical integrity means that the procedure should only be carried out on boys old enough to give personal consent.