A South African cultural rights group on Tuesday urged the government to establish legal ground rules for male circumcision rituals to prevent botched surgeries by traditional healers.
Over the last decade 83 people have died — including 19 this year alone — in the Eastern Cape province as a result of the age-old practice that marks the passage of boys into manhood.
Health officials say bacterial infections, dehydration and abuse are common causes of frequent deaths in initiation rituals.
Outsiders rarely get a glimpse into the secretive, coming-of-age ceremonies in some tribal groups of South Africa, but media articles have reported beatings and exposure to frigid temperatures for boys as young as 12.
”There needs to be medical help … but it’s not just an issue for the national health department,” cultural rights campaigner Mongezi Guma told Reuters.
”It is a cultural practice and core values must be protected,” said Guma, head of the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities.
He spoke in Johannesburg during the final in a series of countrywide public hearings on the future of initiation schools, organised by Guma’s body, the South African Human Rights Commission and the National House of Traditional Leaders.
Guma said he hopes the process will lead to the establishment of advisory bodies of community elders to register traditional healers and in addition have mandatory medical check-ups for each boy prior to the initiation event.
Guma said authorities should help provide hygienic settings for traditional circumcision, including sterilised medical utensils.
Traditional leaders say they would support any step that would stop fake traditional healers who are often blamed for botched operations and charge exorbitant fees for the services.
But they warn that some people in their community prefer traditional treatment to modern medicine and new government regulations will not change perceptions toward a practice that has deep cultural roots.
”This is a traditional thing so let us remain that way and there should be no infiltration from society that does not believe in such practices,” said Bernard Kekana, of the Ndebele tribe in the northern Limpopo province of South Africa.
”Don’t trample on our traditions.”
The merits of male circumcision are also being discussed in medical circles of Aids-hit Africa, where clinical studies have shown that circumcising men can lower the risk of infection of HIV, the virus that causes Aids. — Reuters