Initiation deaths concern

THE passage from boyhood to manhood continues to become increasingly life-threatening for Xhosa communities in the Eastern Cape, where male circumcision is widely practiced and initiation schools are held in high regard.

Traditionally, when a boy reaches puberty, he and others of the same age from his community were handed to an initiation school where they were not only circumcised, but were taught values and responsibilities of manhood.

This happened with the permission of the parents, and was celebrated and treasured by the communities.

Today, however, this custom has become synonymous with the death of initiates who, sometimes without the permission of parents, present themselves to unqualified initiation schools. Scores of boys have been reported to have died of dehydration, excessive cold and bleeding in some of these schools.

Also, there has been wide coverage in the South African media about the issues of hospital admissions and deaths of initiates undergoing initiation rites and traditional male circumcision in the Eastern Cape. To address this, the Eastern Cape Legislature promulgated the Application of Health Standards in Traditional Circumcision in 2001 in an effort to regulate the practice and observance of this custom.

Unfortunately, the incidence of injuries and deaths of initiates remains high as since 2006 close to 6 000 initiates were admitted to hospitals across the Eastern Cape. More than 460 initiates have died since 2006, leaving behind grief among affected families and heightened concerns among many whose children must go through this rite of passage.

So serious is the extent of this problem that even the school system has been disrupted as the majority of the youth undergoing the rite are pupils. As a result tuition time is increasingly being diverted towards efforts to mop up the consequences of irresponsible behaviour that leads to injuries and deaths of initiates.

For example, in cases of deaths, the school takes time to arrange or participate in memorial services and funerals.

The value of the space created by media coverage has attracted my attention and that of my colleague, Dr Mbuyiselo Douglas, as two of a handful of researchers who over our academic careers have conducted extensive research on traditional male circumcision in the province.

Over the past 10 years the media have played an important role in putting under the spotlight injuries and deaths of initiates by highlighting useful statistics and profiling a region’s specific cases, including voices of the swelling number of stakeholders as well as the previously overlooked affected individuals and families.

This is because of the rare insights and depth of reporting we have observed over the past 10 years as the media continue to add value to various efforts that are aimed at accurately diagnosing the causes and effects of injuries and deaths of initiates, collectively investing time and resources to address the problem, and continuously incorporating communities at various stages of addressing the problem.

My review of the content of newspaper articles on the subject over the past 10 years reveals opportunities for the enhancement of ongoing efforts to educate communities about safe, legal and culturally sensitive practices related to observance of traditionally male circumcision in the Eastern Cape, as well as to combat gender-based violence which can be integrated into the initiation and traditional teachings about sexual behaviours.

What I find encouraging is the specific mention of the words “injuries” and “deaths”, as well as region-specific statistics in the newspaper headlines.

These details reflect the weight attached to the subject, the interest in coverage that reflects the complexity of the problem in a manner that helps various stakeholders to evaluate, augment and upscale interventions introduced over the years.

An interesting observation in the media coverage is the categorisation of medical and non-medical causes of injuries and deaths of initiates as well as injuries that are self-inflicted by the initiates and their age-mates as opposed to injuries inflicted by others such as traditional surgeons (iingcibi) performing the surgical operation or traditional guardians (amakhankatha) that nurse initiates.

First, according to the emerging voices in the media, what is required most are collective efforts of families and community stakeholders to confront and curb self-inflicted injuries resulting from alcohol and substance abuse. Such challenges represent a breakdown of moral fibre and community values upon which traditional male circumcision is based.

For example, alcohol and substance abuse is reported as fuelling a life-threatening behaviour that is turning this tradition into a battlefield for unruly boys who are tainting what started as a sport of stick fighting centuries ago by changing it into a dangerous pastime as axes, bush knives, pocket knives and other homemade weapons inflict wounds that are sometimes deadly. This is an area in which community voices and community efforts providing practical solutions must be affirmed.

Second, what is required is strong law enforcement to pursue all the culprits, including the under-aged boys who willfully place themselves in the path of danger in their disregard for parental guidance. These delinquent boys go as far as obtaining bogus medical fitness certificates and bogus parental consent notes to present these, together with bribes, to the traditional surgeons.

Unless more is done collectively, including strengthening law enforcement so that it has a deterrent effect on teenagers who are often in the care of grandparents because their parents are working in distant urban centres, we will not turn the tide against injuries and deaths of initiates.

Let us all pay attention to the emerging voices.

‘ More than 460 initiates have died since 2006, leaving behind grief among affected families and heightened concerns