Man Chops Off Testicle in Job Protest

LIMA, Peru (Reuters) - A Peruvian man who last year sliced off his penis to draw attention to his jobless plight on Monday chopped off one of his testicles in front of the parliament building, police and hospital officials said.

``I'm doing all this to protest my lousy situation,'' Eduardo Veliz, 36, told doctors after his dramatic stunt.

Veliz, now a poorly paid laborer, hacked off his penis last September outside parliament after failing to meet the Congress head to ask for work. It was successfully reimplanted.

Witnesses said Veliz shouted at the door of Congress that he wanted to see Congress President Carlos Ferrero.

``When he couldn't see him, he got out a sharp knife and cut off his testicle,'' a policeman, who asked not to be named, told Reuters.

Firefighters rushed over to Veliz, who was bleeding heavily, and he was taken to a hospital where doctors said he suffered a ``traumatic castration'' of the right testicle.

``He's a laborer. Last year he was asking for work ... this time he wanted a pay rise because he says he earns a paltry wage,'' said Carlos Viera, spokesman at the Dos de Mayo hospital which treated Veliz on both occasions.

Peru's President Alejandro Toledo has pledged to create jobs and alleviate the suffering of more than half the nation's 26 million people who live in poverty.

Despite his mutilation, Viera said Veliz could still enjoy ''a normal sex life.''