Government has called out Eastern Cape parents for stretching healthcare resources by continuing to practice individual circumcision rites (Amabhoma) rather than sending their boys to communal initiation camps.
With the winter initiation season set to start in May, the provincial government is urging families to send their boys to communal initiation camps as part of an effort to avoid more deaths.
The call for a “return to custom” was made by provincial co-operative governance & traditional affairs (Cogta) MEC Zolile Williams, who said individual initiation camps overstretched traditional and state doctors’ efforts to attend to the needs of Abakwetha, resulting in the use of illegal surgeons.
This follows after a R6m cash injection from the department was announced for the current financial year to be directed towards traditional councils, which will, from May, oversee the customary initiation process across the province.
Williams said individual camps had opened the doors for illegitimate surgeons.
“Traditional circumcision should not be unnecessarily individualised. That’s why you’ll find thousands of single mkweta [initiates] in each bhoma.
“If you do that, you’re stretching the capacity of men helping.”
He said a new plan was designed after the deaths of 29 initiates in December 2024.
“We’re now creating all the working committees in each traditional council, working committees that will monitor traditional circumcision.
“There was a disjuncture between the principal or senior traditional leaders and the headmen in terms of monitoring traditional circumcision.
“We are now converging those two. An allocation of this R6m is to strengthen monitoring.
“We must be in every bhoma [hut] that we have in the Eastern Cape and we want all the bhomas to be legitimately approved by headmen and chiefs in their areas of jurisdiction because what we’re trying to prevent are these illegal bhomas because that’s where deaths arise from.”
He also said that all 1,200 headmen in the province would be provided with cellphones and data.
Congress of Traditional Leaders of SA (Contralesa) provincial chair Inkosi Mwelo Nonkonyana said they welcomed the additional funding for traditional councils, however, he expressed scepticism about the state of readiness for the upcoming initiation season.
“This will enhance needed mutual trust and co-operative governance to deliver a better life to all the people living in our areas.
“On the issue of initiation, we are concerned about the state of readiness, particularly during the short school holidays as we need at least four weeks to produce leaders of tomorrow, empowered by men who are passionate and have the necessary skills and experience so that we can achieve our vision of zero deaths in the initiation of boys to manhood,” he said.
At the beginning of 2025, Cogta minister Velenkosini Hlabisa, his counterpart Williams, and traditional leaders criss-crossed the province speaking to kings, senior traditional leaders, headmen and headwomen, and other stakeholders in an effort to ensure the 2025 winter traditional initiation season is safe, and to curb illegal initiations, especially in the OR Tambo district.
Hlabisa said his department would recommend that President Cyril Ramaphosa institute a commission of inquiry into the deaths of 371 initiates in the Eastern Cape dating back to 2016.
Daily Dispatch
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.