NGO condemns boys’ circumcision
Medical circumcision creates a ‘stigma and make them outcasts’
ANGO concerned with the safe rite of passage from boyhood to manhood has condemned the mass medical circumcision of 33 boys from a village near Mount Ayliff this past weekend.
The Daily Dispatch reported on how boys between the ages of 10 and 16 were at school when given consent forms by what they believed were health officials.
The “officials” told the boys to have the forms signed by a parent so they could undergo the surgical procedure.
The boys, from Sugarbush Village near Mount Ayliff, were circumcised in Rhode Clinic and Mount Ayliff Hospital after parents gave consent to what they thought was a government programme.
However, the health department said it did not know anything about the matter, with fingers being pointed at national or provincial health departments as well as at local nongovernmental organisations (NGOs).
NGO Community Development Foundation of South Africa (Codefsa), executive director Nkululeko Nxesi said: “Medical male circumcision (MMC) in areas where traditional circumcision is strong causes problems for boys in those communities.
“It creates a stigma and makes them outcasts. There is even a high possibility for them being kidnapped and taken for traditional circumcision come initiation season.”
Nxesi said it was not the first time he had heard of such a thing happening. A similar incident occurred in Lusikisiki where boys were taken for MMC, although it was without the consent of their parents and two of them died.
It could not be ascertained whether any of the boys in the Mount Ayliff incident were harmed in anyway, although the Daily Dispatch understands that at least one boy remained in hospital following the procedure, while the rest went home.
The United Democratic Movement in the Eastern Cape urged health MEC Sicelo Gqobana to investigate how young boys came to be circumcised by people purporting to be officials from his department.
“This is a very strange operation indeed and the department of health must provide the people of the Eastern Cape with answers,” said Mabandla Gogo, UDM provincial spokesman.
Xolela Somahela, from the provincial department of health’s HIV directorate, under which circumcision matters fall, said an investigation was underway.
Chairman of the Eastern Cape House of Traditional Leaders, Ngangomhlaba Matanzima said they had noticed MMC was being promoted.
Matanzima said the stigma that followed boys who chose MMC led to divisions within communities.
“We want to appeal to government that no matter how helpful MMC is, it should be explained properly to parents and boys,” he said.
He further appealed for national government to address traditional leaders on the proper procedures that should be followed when MMC is chosen and how to avoid the conflicts and divisions that ensued as a result.