Five initiate deaths since start of season

Follow advice of screening doctors and use only registered schools to avoid further heartbreak, MEC warns parents

Five initiates have died in the Eastern Cape since the start of the summer season on November 4.

Most boys underwent initiation over the December 3 weekend, after writing their final matric paper.

Co-operative governance and traditional affairs MEC Zolile Williams confirmed the deaths and sent condolences to the bereaved families.

“It is quite disheartening that our children have died just a few weeks after the official opening of the summer initiation season,” he said.

“The challenge we face is that parents do not know what they are expected to do in respect of ensuring advice from screening doctors is adhered to.”

In trying to curb the high fatality rate of initiates in the province, the young men are required to have a medical examination to assess if they are fit enough for the rite.

But some parents disregard medical advice and work in cahoots with illegal traditional initiation practitioners.

Prospective initiates must have written permission from their parents and guardians and a traditional leader, while circumcision practitioners, including traditional surgeons and traditional nurses, must be approved by the health department.

“Looking at one of the initiates who passed on, the doctors confirmed the child was not medically fit to undergo the rite. His blood pressure was quite high and he was diabetic,” the MEC said.

“He had to be kept home or in the hospital for some time before going to the initiation school.

“The child was retested, the blood pressure was still high and the doctor advised that he be kept home or admitted to hospital until the diabetes was under control.

“But the parents came under pressure and took the child to initiation school. Parents must ensure that they adhere to the medical screening advice.”

Williams said officials found that of the five deaths, two initiates had been underage and attending an illegal initiation school, while the third had been the diabetic patient.

Williams said in the Eastern Cape only boys aged 18 and over were authorised to undergo the rite.

The law made special provision for boys aged 16 to undergo the rite only if there was a special and convincing reason.

“The legislation says if you take a child at 16 years there must be seriously good reasons.

“We have been making calls to parents to please take the children to legally registered initiation schools.

“So, if as parents we don’t act consciously we are actually applying for our children to die, and this is a serious challenge.”

Williams said all the stakeholders — parents, traditional leaders, government departments, police, NGOS, faithbased organisations, communities and other sectors — could circumvent some of the challenges. Parents are central to initiation because we get that child from a family.

“The family must know that the child has some underlying diseases or health concerns.

“If we do not work with parents on that particular issue, I am telling you that circumcision processes are going to fail no matter what we do.

“We must always avoid using illegal traditional surgeons and illegal initiation schools because that contributes to the challenges of botched circumcision and deaths this province is facing right now.”

Eastern Cape House of Traditional and Khoi-san Leaders chair Nkosi Mpumalanga Gwadiso said it was doing all it could to save lives.

“Traditional leaders have a responsibility to ensure that the custom is practised and managed properly.

“Monitoring teams are helping to ensure visibility and provide further support to traditional leaders and council members on the ground.

“It is disappointing that there is ineffectiveness in some areas and we are working towards mitigating measures in terms of monitoring and visibility.”

Gwadiso and Williams said all prospective initiates who were suffering from chronic ailments had to be allowed to take their medication to the initiation school.

Parents needed to identify a credible traditional surgeon to perform the circumcision and get a credible traditional nurse to take care of the initiates during the course of initiation.

In the 2021 summer season, 53,089 initiates underwent the rite in the Eastern Cape, of whom 49 died and 17 had penile amputations.