The National House of Traditional Leaders is to appoint a four-member task team to get ”first-hand information” on ongoing problems with traditional circumcision ceremonies.
The resolution, taken at a meeting of the body in Cape Town on Thursday, follows the deaths of 16 youths and the hospitalising of dozens more in the Eastern Cape over the past few weeks.
Kgoshi Dikgale Solomon, who proposed the motion that led to the decision, said that in his home province, Limpopo, four would-be initiates have died this winter season.
He said the task team will communicate with the Eastern Cape provincial house, where the situation is ”very bad”, and visit it to get first-hand information.
”We will talk to our members in the provincial houses to see to it that they talk to their members in the different communities,” he said.
The national house held a major conference, at a reported cost of about R1-million, on circumcision in 2004.
It proposed uniform provincial legislation on circumcision — the Eastern Cape and Limpopo both have circumcision Acts — as well as national legislation.
”We want that [provincial health] departments should stick to their Acts, and also traditional leaders, because there are traditional leaders who are [only] having an interest in the money,” he said.
”We want the traditional leaders to talk to the communities to show the importance of the Acts and the practice of the culture. Traditional leaders must have control of this,” he said.
He said colluding traditional leaders are in many cases the cause of the ongoing problems. If there were an illegal circumcision school in his own area, he would know immediately.
Asked if he thinks the newest initiative will, in fact, make any difference, he said: ”We mustn’t fail to try.”
Another death
Earlier on Thursday, the Eastern Cape health department announced the death of another would-be initiate, bringing the toll in the province to 16.
Spokesperson Luyanda Majeke said the youth, who had been attending an illegal initiation school at Mooiplaas outside East London, died on Tuesday. A post-mortem has confirmed that he died of septicaemia.
Majeke said department authorities were on their way to Mooiplaas to conduct an ”outreach” programme to educate the public about correct circumcision procedures.
He said police intended to arrest the unlicensed traditional surgeon who ran the school.
Seventeen unlicensed surgeons have already been arrested in the province this winter circumcision season. They face a variety of charges, including murder and unlawful circumcision.
Dozens of initiates have been admitted to hospital with circumcision-related complications, including gangrene and malnutrition, or for recircumcision.
The South African Broadcasting Corporation reported on Thursday that six people appeared briefly in the Kabokweni Magistrate’s Court on Thursday for the attempted murder and robbery of two Mpumalanga journalists. The case was postponed to July 18.
The accused included a 77-year-old initiation-school owner and a 30-year-old man, who were released on R1 000 bail each. The other four — aged between 14 and 17 — were released into the custody of their parents.
The six were arrested on Tuesday for allegedly assaulting and robbing two journalists working for the Mpumalanga News.
The journalists were attacked at an initiation school in White River while following up a story on the death of a 14-year-old initiate. — Sapa