Indaba shines the spotlight on circumcision

The deaths and injuries of initiates will come under the spotlight when traditional leaders, surgeons and health practitioners meet next week.

The CRL Rights Commission has also invited some of the parents who have lost children at initiation schools, Khoi-leaders, department of cooperative governance and traditional affairs (Cogta), initiation schools principals, the National Prosecuting Authority, and caregivers at these initiation schools to the inaugural National Customary Initiation Indaba.

It will be held from Monday until Wednesday at Birchwood Hotel and Conference Centre in Boksburg, Ekurhuleni.

The commission's chairperson, Prof David Mosoma, said the Chapter 9 institution was organising the indaba in an attempt to prevent deaths at initiation schools.

The commission said Cogta figures showed that more than 700 initiates have died since 2006.

“In spite of several positive efforts undertaken by many institutions, the country has continued to be flooded by reports of young men who in the quest of practicing their culture, yet come back in black bags – dead, amputated or even injured.

“Most of these resulted in increasing number of deaths of young men, those who suffered penile amputations, as well as those who had injuries experienced from certain initiation schools,” said Mosoma.

“As communities we cannot continue to allow young men to die in the prime of their lives at initiation schools, especially when they should be contributing to the welfare of the economy and their families.

“The uniqueness of the indaba comes as an emergency because the rate of deaths in these initiation schools is staggeringly unreasonable.”

The indaba aims to come up with possible solutions to eradicate the high number of deaths and create a conducive environment of acceptable norms and standards that should prevail without endangering the lives of young men.

In addition, the indaba will also look at preventing botched circumcisions as a result of illegal schools in some regions and also determine interventions that can be used to assist victims to regain their dignity.

Mosoma said they will also touch on the Customary Initiation Act which President Cyril Ramaphosa signed into law in 2021..   

The law was meant to have initiation school operators screened for criminal records,  discourage the use of alcohol and impose stiffer sentences on illegal operators.

Mosoma said there was a need to put processes in place that will hold law breakers accountable

as there were still many bogus initiation schools that were set up to make a quick buck.

“Through its investigation in 2017, the CRL Rights Commission found that in Gauteng, some criminal elements had also crept into this traditional practice of initiation.

“Importantly, , the commission noted that in some instances this right of passage was practiced in such a way that violated the other rights, r particularly in instances such as the abduction – where  young boys were taken away without parental consent, including the use of violence,” he said.

Mosoma said the commission further found that some of the activities were in clear violation of the Children’s Act and the Prevention and Combating of Trafficking in Persons Act, among others.

sibanyonim@sowetan.co.za