The Economic and Social Council of the United Nations granted Roster status to NOCIRC in July 1999.

NOCIRC has official representatives at the UN Headquarters in New York and the UN office in Geneva. NOCIRC also can designate official representatives to attend meetings at the UN's Vienna office.

Although the UN recognizes the right of females to keep their genitals intact, it has yet to recognize that same right for males.

On May 30, 2001, Shelton Walden, Director of NOCIRC of NY and our United Nations Representative in New York, attended a UN meeting of NGOs (non-governmental organizations) at the State Department in Washington, DC, to request the issue of male genital mutilation be put on the agenda in preparation for the UN's Special Session on Children, scheduled for 19-21 September in New York [and subsequently canceled because of the 9-11 disaster there]. On June 11, Shelton attended preparatory committee sessions in New York, especially the meetings of the Child's Right Caucus. This is the first time that the issue of male genital mutilation has been introduced to the United Nations. [The UN meeting will be rescheduled.]

J. Steven Svoboda, JD, founder and director of Attorneys for the Rights of the Child (ARC), represented both ARC and NOCIRC when he brought the issue of male genital mutilation to the UN's 52nd annual meeting of the United Nations' Sub-Commission for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights in Geneva, 14 August 2001.

• Oral Arguments   Same article at ARC.org
• 
  
• Written Arguments   Same article at ARC.org
• 
  
• Written statement submitted by the National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource Centers (NOCIRC), a non-governmental organization on the Roster, E/CN.4/Sub.2/2002/NGO/1, 23 March 2002.

NOCIRC will continue to work to impel the UN to acknowledge and address the forced and coerced cutting of males as a violation of human rights.