BARNEY MTHOMBOTHI | The deadly price of tradition that snatches young lives

Every winter the country seems to go through an annual ritual of mourning, grieving for the young lives needlessly lost in so-called initiation schools. Every year, without fail, families and mothers bury sons they’d hoped would grow into useful adults. And each time, such atrocities are greeted with righteous indignation, but little is ever done to stop the carnage.

There’s perhaps nothing more symptomatic of the worthlessness and utter ineffectiveness of a government than its failure to put a stop to the continuous destruction of young and innocent lives. And it’s not as if these deaths are unexpected or come as a surprise. They’ve become routine and, unfortunately, almost monotonous in their regularity.

This year has again seen a horrendous harvest from these mysterious schools: 45 deaths at the last count — 18 in Mpumalanga, 14 in the Eastern Cape, with five other provinces contributing their own gruesome tolls. We express fleeting outrage, shrug our shoulders and then return to our daily lives. But how long can we go on like this? Must we sacrifice the lives of young boys in the name of “our culture”? What price culture?

To questions such practices is often to stir up a hornet’s nest. It’s almost regarded as sacrilegious. Not all the boys go to these schools voluntarily. Some are compelled to go by their parents, while others have reportedly even been abducted by complete strangers.

The practice is as old as the hills, an African tradition seen as a rite of passage to adulthood for young boys. Apart from customary circumcision, various forms of knowledge and wisdom are supposed to be imparted: cultural heritage, respect, discipline and responsibility. Boys are taught how to behave or carry themselves as responsible members of society.

Yet there’s no evidence that these rituals have in any way helped stem the widespread abuse of women that continues to blight society. Some activists argue that the practice encourages or reinforces male chauvinism, one of the drivers of gender-based abuse. In some areas, female genital mutilation — regarded internationally as a violation of human rights — is still practised as part of initiation rituals.

The government must either ensure these schools are thoroughly regulated, with zero tolerance for harm or death to initiates, or it should ban them

Despite changing social patterns, circumcision in the bush — often under rudimentary and unhygienic conditions — has endured, and the number of initiation schools appears to increase every year. So too does the number of casualties. The Eastern Cape — the epicentre of the crisis, if you like — has recorded more than 900 deaths in initiation schools over the past ten years. No normal society should accept such needless slaughter of its young people. What is often not recorded, however, is the number of initiates who come out of these places with life-altering injuries, including mutilated or dismembered penises. Many are scarred for life.

The government’s intervention so far has been to pass the Customary Initiation Act of 2021. This created national and provincial bodies to register schools and enforce standards, as well as criminalise abductions, forced initiations and the operation of illegal schools. These measures don’t seem to have made any difference. Initiates continue to die.

Most of this year’s 45 deaths occurred in so-called compliant schools. Overall, 75 initiates were hospitalised for various injuries, 58 illegal schools were closed and more than 180 initiates rescued from such facilities. The causes of death and injury vary: botched circumcisions, serious or untreated infections, dehydration, exposure to extreme weather conditions and even severe beatings. Most of these causes are preventable.

Yet each year these casualties provoke not a genuine attempt to prevent them happening again, but another bout of buck-passing: government blaming local authorities or traditional leaders; and traditional leaders blaming illegal schools, or vice versa. One cannot imagine, for instance, either the Boys Scouts or the Voortrekkers tolerating such unnecessary loss of life. Is it because the government regards black life as cheap? It is, after all, the primary responsibility of government to safeguard the lives of all its citizens.

But parents should also share some of the blame. They take their children to these places without anybody putting a gun to their heads. And when, to their relief, the young man mercifully returns home unharmed, it becomes a big deal and is cause for celebration.

If parents are not in a position to raise their sons or instil in them the necessary moral values, no outsider can adequately fulfil that role

If you want your son circumcised, why not take him to a hospital? How can parents allow somebody without any medical or surgical qualifications to mess with their son, often under unhygienic conditions, and sometimes with devastating consequences? Aren’t they going to be complicit or feel guilty should something go wrong?

We’re often told of the cultural importance of these practices and the traditional values of respect and discipline they are meant to impart. But instilling social norms — or any such altruistic reasons — is often far from the minds of some of the people who run these schools. It’s often more about making money. Jobs are hard to come by.

If parents are not in a position to raise their sons or instil in them the necessary moral values, no outsider can adequately fulfil that role. One wonders how it must feel for a parent to sleep comfortably at night while their son, probably their only child, is far away in the bush, living under some igloo-like structure with little more than a thin blanket to keep him warm in these cold temperatures.

Culture can admittedly be a sensitive subject and often sharply divides opinions. But we can agree that it should certainly not be the cause of any deaths.

The government must either ensure these schools are thoroughly regulated, with zero tolerance for harm or death to initiates, or it should ban them. Parents, too, will have to decide how long they’re prepared to put up with such a death toll in the service of a culture.