current issues

• cosmetic surgery – may 2010

Cosmetic surgery is not a new phenomenon. However, a "body-changing culture" is currently being popularised and becoming pervasive in many countries, and includes modifications through surgery to the most intimate parts of the body. This surgery emanates from the private, profit-making health sector and has become a high-earner. Women are its prime targets but increasingly also men. The papers in this journal issue are about cosmetic surgery in Sweden, UK, USA, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Iran and South Africa, and in the Round Up section also on Senegal and Lebanon. Most are about surgery on women's genitals; one focuses on breast augmentation. Issues these papers raise include the relationship between female genital mutilation and female cosmetic genital surgery; informed consent and regulation of professional practice; and ensuring that people know about risks and complications, especially as regards breast implants and penis enlargement.

• criminalisation – november 2009

The papers in this journal issue are about the law and criminalisation relating to rape and sexual violence, female genital mutilation (FGM), selling and buying sex, provision and use of modern contraception and induced abortion, homosexuality, and HIV transmission and exposure. The papers are highly thought-provoking, especially when read together, not least because the question of whether criminalisation is a good thing or a bad thing must be answered quite, quite differently in relation to each criminalised practice explored. It is easy to argue why modern contraception and induced abortion should be legal because they are necessary to protect women's lives and health, and that sexual identity is inherent in the person and must be respected by society and protected in law. It is not so easy to determine how justice should be best served, as opposed to exacting retribution or revenge, or how to protect the rights of both perpetrators and victims, when a serious or life-threatening harm has been done, including and even in the absence of criminal intent to harm, as with HIV transmission and exposure.