Peri and I watched the Turkish TV News in disbelief the other night as the news-anchor described a circumcision that took place in a public parking lot...performed by an unlicensed practitioner, who cut off one-third of a 10 year-old boy's penis!

A boy's worst nightmare -- and a father's too...

After the unlicensed practitioner botched the circumcision of the child in a municipal parking lot in Bursa (Western Turkey), friends and family had to rush the boy to hospital in a panic. The hospital's on-duty doctor hastily sewed the severed piece back on, but the result won't be known for some time to come.

The parents of the 10-year-old boy C.N. (from the Dikkaldirim Mahallesi; Dikkaldirim District of Bursa) had become eager recently to have their son circumcised (in accordance with Islamic religious tradition) -- even at the boy's advanced age for the procedure. So they made arrangements to have it done by an unlicensed person who was known locally as a s¨¹nnet?i (circumcision practitioner) -- and who had worked for a while in a sağlık ocağı (small town health clinic).

During the procedure (which was performed in a spare room attached to the city's central parking lot), the boy began to scream in pain. When he suddenly became covered in blood, family and friends whisked him off to hospital, together with the severed piece of his penis -- where he underwent surgery to sew it back on.

Eyvah! (My God!/How awful!)

The boy's father who was waiting outside, said that he rushed into the room to find his son covered in blood when he heard a voice cry, "My god it's cut in two! It's detached."

Psychological Trauma is likely...

The boy had an emergency operation under general anesthesia and Prof. Dr. Emin Balkan reattached the severed penile-piece, as best he could under the circumstances, back into place. The Doctor said, "It was a successful operation, and the chance of full recovery is 70%."

"But more important than that will be the psychological trauma that the child is likely to suffer. Even if he recovers from his physical wound, we believe he'll have psychological distress for some time to come." And he went on to say that, "it's a sorrowful event but one that provides an important lesson."

Dr. Balkan (who could barely contain his anger after his manhood-saving effort) said that too many Turkish people think that s¨¹nnet (circumcision) is a simple procedure. "S¨¹nnet," he said, "is a surgical procedure -- and like all other such procedures, it must be carried out in a sterile environment. And it must be performed by a well-trained, experienced, and licensed medical-professional... This unfortunate boy may be adversely affected for the rest of his life -- by what has happened to him today."

[Click following to access our illustrated HTML-page A Boy's Worst Nightmare and follow the links to learn more about Turkish Circumcision traditions.]

Jim and (co-author) Perihan Masters are a husband and wife team, living on the Aegean Coast of Turkey just 50 miles south of Izmir. Jim was born in Shanghai, China -- of American military parentage. Peri was born on the Black Sea coast of Turkey near Trabzon, of Turkish military parentage...Enticed by a Financial Times advertisement, Jim joined a NATO sponsored enterprise in Ankara in 1974 where he met the beautiful and brainy Perihan, a rising young Turkish banking executive. Settled now in the heart of what was once the ancient Ionian Empire -- the couple live an idyllic life by the sea.. writing, drawing and painting, teaching English, and providing computing service support to local businesses. They also sponsor the MSNBC award-winning Learning Practical Turkish Website which has built an enthusiastic international following of devoted Turkophiles and inquisitive language students of all ages.