Back to the News 2008 page.PRETORIA NEWS, Wednesday, July 2, 2008.
The number of winter circumcision fatalities in the
Eastern Cape has risen to 15 following the death of
another youth in the Libode area of Transkei, the
provincial health department said on Wednesday.
Spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo said the latest death
followed an attempt by parents to frustrate the
department's efforts to clamp down on an illegal
initiation school.
He said police and health officials went to the site
of the school at Gxulu village in the early hours of
Saturday morning when one youth died there.
They found the site deserted, and community members
assured them that all the remaining boys had been taken
away by their parents and were safe.
However, Kupelo said, it appeared that they merely
re-established the school at a different site.
A second boy died at the new site on Tuesday
afternoon.
"This is unacceptable," he said. "People must
understand these deaths happen at illegal schools
because the whole thing is not properly
organised."
Kupelo said autopsies had not yet been carried out,
but the usual causes of initiate deaths were gangrene
from septic wounds, or dehydration.
He said the department was disturbed by the growing
tendency for parents to try to treat initiates' health
problems at home.
"It is important for people to raise the alarm with
the department because we have the skill, we have the
capacity. They are running away from the hospital and
it's not going to help."
Earlier this week Kupelo warned that parents who were
negligent over their sons' circumcisions would face the
full might of the province's Traditional Circumcision
Act.
Parents found guilty of contravening the act faced a
fine of R1 000 - which coincidentally is the daily cost
of hospitalisation for an initiate - or six months in
jail.
Over 90 other initiates are being treated in various
Eastern Cape hospitals, four of them facing possible
genital amputation.
Meanwhile, one Libode chief on Wednesday announced
measures to clamp down on illegal circumcision in his
area.
Chief Mangaliso Bokleni said his Gibisela traditional
council had called an urgent community meeting for
Thursday to discuss circumcision problems that have
already claimed the life of one initiate in the
area.
Bokleni said illegal circumcisions, by unregistered
traditional surgeons, were a "big problem" in the
area.
Though 18 was the proper age for circumcision,
children as young as 11 were being subjected to the
practice.
Another problem was that youths did not write their
school exams before going to circumcision
schools.
Thursday's meeting, which would also be attended by
health department officials, would introduce a single
traditional surgeon responsible for the entire council
area, which covers eight villages.
He would be the only surgeon with authority to
circumcise boys from those villages.
Along with him would be four traditional nurses
responsible for management of the initiation schools,
where boys stay after the circumcision.
Bokleni said the actual circumcisions would be
performed only on the premises of the council offices,
and a guardian or parent of the youth would have to be
present.
The council intended to impose a fine of an ox -
usually paid in its R600 cash equivalent - on anyone
who did not comply with these resolutions. - Sapa
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