SHAME FOR DODGY CUTTERS
Awards for initiation schools
DODGY traditional circumcision practitioners will soon be exposed and given “awards” to shame them.
The Community Development Foundation of SA (Codefsa), in partnership with the Congress of Traditional Leaders of South Africa (Contralesa), at the weekend launched their inaugural Traditional Initiation Awards in Tembisa, Ekurhuleni, where 25 individuals including traditional councils and leaders, government departments and the media were honoured.
Codefsa executive director Nkululeko Nxesi told Sowetan the second offering of the awards in next year would feature two categories aimed at exposing bogus traditional surgeons and nurses whose shoddy work lead to injuries, deaths and amputations of initiates.
“We know them and where they do their work. We work with forums that will help us identify them,” Nxesi said.
“This is part of the campaign to name and shame them and in the long run it will help parents that want to send their kids to initiation schools to know which practitioners not to go to.
“As much as the entire purpose and objective of these awards is to recognise people that have excelled in their work and complied with the laws of the practice, we must not forget that there are rotten potatoes that continue to put a dark mark in traditional circumcision. If the courts fail to put them in jail, the best we can do is to expose them,” Nxesi said.
Two weeks ago the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities (CRL) chairwoman Thoko MkhwanaziXaluva expressed disappointment that dodgy practitioners were being arrested but not convicted.
“But when we ask the law enforcement officials if we can go to jail to see those people that have been sentenced they tell us that nobody is being jailed.
“How does it happen that people that are killing our youth are not serving time in jail,” asked Mkhwanazi-Xaluva during CRL’s launch of the national hearings that will probe the deaths of over 500 initiates since 2006.
Among the winners on Saturday were CRL, Sedibeng Initiation Forum, Westrand District Initiation Forum, Mpumalanga’s Ngoma Forum, Chief Robert Mampuru and Dr Raymond Campbell.
Nkosana Mthimkhulu was given the award for best nurse, while Edward Mazibuko got the best surgeon award. Both are from Sedibeng, south of Johannesburg.
The area has been known for the abduction of boys by touters who work as runners for illegal initiation schools.
“They then extort money from the boys’ parents to secure their release.”
Mazibuko started circumcising boys in 2009, beginning with his own son. He circumcises about 15 boys each season and has never experienced any deaths or injuries at his initiation school.
“I love what I do and what, I think, sets me apart is the fact that I stick to the rules and health guidelines,” 44-year-old Mazibuko said.