New initiation bill gets thumbs up from parties
Leaders hope law will curb deaths
POLITICAL parties at the Bhisho legislature have welcomed the passing of the Eastern Cape Customary Male Initiation Practice Bill of 2015.
Parties said it would go a long way to reducing fatalities in initiation schools across the province.
The bill will make 18 the minimum age for young boys to be able to go to initiation schools. It was passed by the legislature sitting on Tuesday.
It is now waiting for premier Phumulo Masualle’s signature for it to be gazetted as enforceable law.
The new bill, passed just a few days before the beginning of the summer initiation season this weekend, will give sole powers of control to traditional leaders as custodians of this age- old custom.
Relevant government departments, such as health and cooperative governance and traditional affairs, which have been in the forefront when it comes to initiation process matters, will now be reduced to being initiation committee members in committees chaired by various traditional leaders.
The passing of the bill comes just days before an estimated 40 000 boys in the province head to the mountains to start the summer initiation season.
A total of 40 496 boys, excluding those in illegal initiation schools, underwent the rite last summer, with 46 of them not making it home due to various reasons including dehydration, infection, malnutrition and severe beatings.
Last year’s summer season saw 368 hospital admissions, with 20 penile amputations and 39 assault cases being reported.
ANC chief whip Mzoleli Mrara yesterday urged Masualle to sign the bill “as soon as possible”.
“For the Eastern Cape to strengthen the regulation of customary male initiation in the province and to curb senseless injuries and deaths of initiates, this piece of legislation will go a long way towards providing for matters connected therewith,” he said.
“This bill is responsive to the plea of Eastern Cape citizenry which calls for this important custom to be safe and without deaths, harm or injury. It makes strides in ensuring that this custom is not allowed to be made a profitmaking scheme, and that unscrupulous elements receive harshest sentences.”
The new bill stipulates that an ingcibi (traditional surgeon) and ikhankatha (traditional nurse) will have to be registered on recommendation by the relevant traditional leader and must be experienced in the practice. It further states that both must be reputable people within their communities as this will limit the issue of initiates being initiated by chancetakers who are after money.
“Furthermore, on providing for the protection of life, the prevention of injuries and the prevention of physical and mental abuse of initiates, the denial of access of a male relative to see an initiate or an initiation working committee being denied access to an initiation school will now be a punishable offence,” said Mrara.
DA MPL Kobus Botha also welcomed the passing of the bill, saying it had been designed “to tackle how the provincial government preserves the initiation custom while eliminating challenges such as abuse and deaths”.