Gauteng health MEC Gwen Ramokgopa on Wednesday closed down two more initiation schools in Heidelberg and ordered all schools to be registered with the relevant local authorities.
Five boys died and more than 50 were hospitalised after being assaulted at traditional initiation ceremonies in Ratanda outside Heidelberg this week, leading to the closing down of two schools.
Ramokgopa said the provincial health department was working with the police and local government to investigate the matter.
”We will not allow such a practice to put the lives of children at risk under the cloak of culture,” she said.
Ramokgopa said initiation schools had to be registered with local government.
”Even in the old days, the local chief would authorise the ceremony before it could go ahead.”
Four teachers at the two initiation schools in the Ratanda area had been taken in for questioning, and the two schools had been shut down, Gauteng police said earlier.
Meanwhile the statutory body of traditional leaders said on Wednesday it was disturbed that the Gauteng government had ignored its numerous requests to discuss the proliferation of fly-by-night initiation schools, which had resulted in the deaths.
National House of Traditional Leaders (NHTL) chairman, Chief Mpiyezintombi Mzimela, said the province had been mushrooming with people from outside areas posing as ”ingcibi” (surgeons) and that the NHTL had wanted to engage the government in seeking a plan to stop this.
”We have been writing letters to the Gauteng government for several times to discuss this but have received no co-operation. We can’t just fold our hands while people who do not even know this custom are the ones running it,” he said.
Mzimela, who is scheduled to meet Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang at an Aids project in the North West Province on Friday, said he would raise the urgency of drafting a law that would govern initiation schools.
”This can be solved only if traditional leaders, together with government, develop as soon as possible a national Act that will serve as a guideline and control the running of these schools,” he said.
Mzimela said the amakhosi had already drawn up a discussion paper on initiation schools, which they intended tabling before the relevant departments.
Mzimela was especially critical of the 19-year-old youth who allegedly paraded as an ingcibi in Heidelberg.
It was ”a shame” that a 19-year old teenager could present himself as an ingcibi, since the ritual was usually performed by experienced elders appointed by a traditional leader of the tribe.
”The school should be closed down and its principal should be arrested and he must rot in jail… The 19-year-old teenager who initiated the school should be arrested, charged and sentenced to the longest possible jail term the courts can give.
”We hope that such a sentence will send a clear message to others who are using our culture to benefit themselves,” he said.
While Congress of Traditional Leaders (Contralesa) chairman Phatekile Holomisa expressed concern at these bogus schools, he believed legislation would only work if it was aimed at empowering traditional leaders like headmen to oversee initiations.
”The similar pieces of legislation in the Eastern Cape and the Northern Province tend to take those powers away from traditional leaders… There is still a lack of dignity for the amakhosi, and they fail to stamp their authority among the communities. Any custom done without due regard to traditional leaders is bound to fail,” he said. – Sapa