DADS DASH TO RESCUE INITIATES
’We are hurt because we had planned with him to wait for 2021. I do not know why he did this’
Fathers hunted down an illegal circumcision school in Buffalo City and rescued their sons this week.
The four youths were found abandoned in thick bush near Scenery Park. The shyster “surgeon” had fled.
The Dispatch was present. The group of fathers and traditional nurses took a path into the bush but it was too late.
The four rescued were among 13 boys, aged 14 to 16, who have been illegally circumcised since the start of the winter initiation season on the weekend.
Buffalo City circumcision forum chair Stanley Makinana said another two boys reportedly in the camp or nearby were still being sought. He had also received a tip-off about an illegal camp near Orange Grove near the airport with six underage boys.
The Eastern Cape recorded the highest number of initiate deaths in the country last summer. Of 34 deaths nationally, 20 were in the province.
At the Scenery Park camp, police were seen taking statements from the teens, some of whom looked confused. A traditional nurse, whose identity is being withheld, said illegal circumcision was prevalent in the area. At the campsite, the Dispatch saw 10 young amakhanktha (traditional nurses), breaking up two huts made of grass, branches and black plastic.
Vuyisile Stena, whose 14year-old son was illegally circumcised, said: “I received a call that my son is circumcised. I called my wife and we went to report at police. We are hurt because we had planned with him to wait for 2021. I do not know why he did this.”
His son looked nervous. Makinana told the Dispatch: “There is pressure on those who have not been circumcised yet. We are working with police and social workers. We have set working committees in all areas to combat this because it is a societal problem and in the end children end up dying.”
Four initiates died in BCM during the summer season.
In this case police acted swiftly and spokesperson Captain Hazel Mqala said a man had been arrested in connection with illegal circumcisions and would appear in the East London magistrate’s court soon.
Makinana said he’d been told some surgeons go to schools and gather boys in the community and promise to circumcise them for payments like a pair of sneakers, a cell phone or an Adidas T-shirt. “We warn those who are doing so that the law will deal with them.”
The Scenery Park drama happened on Friday when a father received a call tipping him off that his son was in a dodgy initiation camp. Other fathers were also alerted and they raced to the bush and found the boys unattended. The parents organised traditional nurses to look after them until the police were brought in. The bogus surgeon had done the deed, and fled with his pay. The “surgeon” was apparently a passerby who lured the boys to his “camp”.
Makinana said: “We are starting the season badly, with problems already. People do not want to get circumcised legally. Boys must be 18 years old.”
He said the forum was stepping up its awareness campaigns. Peer pressure was still the main contributing factor to the crisis.
Makinana said the initiates’ huts were destroyed and the boys were removed to places of safety. “Some people were only circumcised last year but they are already becoming traditional nurses. “We want older men, even those who do not have their sons in initiation, to come and look after initiates.”
“Traditional surgeons have to get licences from health department; they have to have a certificate for each boy who will be getting circumcised, and also be someone that we know has been attending training and is known in the community.”
In January this year Lelethu Zibele, 34, was sentenced to two years in jail or an R8,000 fine by the East London magistrate’s court for illegally circumcising a boy of 15 in Needs Camp near East London.
There were no reports of illegal circumcision in other areas of the province, said cooperative governance & traditional affairs spokesperson Mamkeli Ngam.