“There is no culture that allows for someone to die.”
So said Thoko Mkhwanazi-Xaluva, chairperson of the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities (CRL Rights Commission), yesterday.
The commission has just concluded its three-day hearing on the deaths of young people at initiation schools.
A range of issues related to initiation schools – including the deaths of initiates, botched circumcisions, assaults and dubious traditional practices – spurred its investigations.
According to the commission, 486 initiates had died from 2008 while a further 455 628 were hospitalised due to botched circumcisions.
Mkhwanazi-Xaluva said the aim of the hearings was to bring accountability on what she called the unacceptably high number of casualties in the name of cultural practices.
“These children who die belong to families – what do the families know about the deaths of their children? What we have discovered is that there is a huge gap between the number of deaths and the consequences of these with the National Prosecuting Authority.
"The NPA is saying they don’t get the dockets. So we are asking the police, ‘where are the dockets, what happened to them?’ – because these death numbers are too high,” she said.
“Our belief is that as long as there are no consequences, these deaths will continue. For as long as the nation as a whole, including government, buys into the narrative of the sensitivity of initiation deaths because of culture, then we will never get to the bottom of it.”
The CRL Rights Commission's 2014 report highlighted some of the causes that led to initiates dying during circumcision, which included dehydration, septicaemia, gangrene and assaults on initiates.
Mkhwanazi-Xaluva said they would also be holding accountable people who established initiation schools illegally. The Star reported earlier this year that over 250 children were rescued from illegally run initiation schools in the Sedibeng municipality, where 35 illegal schools were raided and closed.
A mother of a 15-year-old boy who was forcefully taken to an illegal school and subsequently rescued in Vereeniging told The Star of the traumatic state her son was left in.
“My son is not well. Even psychologically you can tell he has gone through tough experiences. A part of me was becoming scared as the days went on without me knowing where he was,” said the mother, who cannot be named, in order to protect the identity of the minor.
The hearings will go to all provinces except KwaZulu-Natal, and conclude on May 16.
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