Ready, Steady, Reed
Nozipho Ndlovu, 24, puts final touches on Zama Mnguni’s face, 17, before the start of the Reed Dance at the Enyokeni Royal Palace in Nongoma yesterday. During the annual Reed Dance, Zulu women declare their virginity before King Goodwill Zwelithini
AT 33, Bongiwe Sithole is a proud virgin and has been rewarded with a scholarship for delaying her sexual debut.
She is one of 16 women awarded “virgin bursaries” by former uThukela district municipality mayor Dudu Mazibuko early this year.
“With your body, with your virginity, you get the bursary,” said Sithole, the oldest of the bursary winners.
Yesterday she was among thousands of women who descended on Enyokeni Royal Palace to declare their virginity before King Goodwill Zwelithini.
Sithole sang and danced with the women in a public display of their pride at being virgins.
This year, for the first time, the Reed Dance was beamed live on TV following a decision by SABC chief operating officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng to improve the public broadcaster’s coverage of heritage activities in South Africa.
Motsoeneng promised King Zwelithini the Reed Dance would be televised live when he visited the royal palace in June.
He said it was time South Africa took pride in its diverse cultures and traditions.
“When I arrived at the SABC the broadcaster was only showing Britain’s queen the whole day. Our king and other kings were not being shown live, but all that will change,” Motsoeneng said.
Sithole, who hails from Ladysmith in KwaZulu-Natal and is in her third year of studying towards a teaching diploma at the University of the Free State, is unfazed by the controversy surrounding the bursaries.
The women are required to undergo virginity testing each time they return home for holidays and could lose their bursaries if it is discovered they have had sex.
In June, the Commission for Gender Equality ruled that the bursaries were unconstitutional and discriminatory, and recommended they be scrapped.
But those opposed to the bursaries, including the commission, were making “empty noises because these bursaries encourage us to behave ourselves”, said Sithole.
“If you are a girl you can remain a virgin no matter how old you are.
“Being a virgin means you that respect yourself and [are] safe from unwanted pregnancies.”
Sithole said she was tested once a month to ensure she was still pure but had been tested twice before making her 15th pilgrimage to the annual Reed Dance at Enyokeni Royal Palace in Nongoma.
On Friday and yesterday, women wearing strings of beads and colourful loincloths carried reeds in a procession before ceremonially presenting them to King Zwelithini in celebration of their purity.
But the Reed Dance has put the king on a collision course with human rights bodies and feminists who have accused him of reviving a practice they regard as a violation of women’s rights.
Concerns have also been raised about whether the women are willing participants in virginity testing.
But King Zwelithini, who revived the practice introduced by his great-grandfather King Shaka to promote respect for women and virginity before marriage, has resisted all attempts to outlaw virginity testing.
If you are a girl you can remain a virgin no matter how old you are
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