Port Elizabeth – Government is doing all it can to ensure safe initiation practices, and the community must report illegal initiation activity, the African National Congress in the Eastern Cape said on Saturday.
“Reports about deaths of abakhwetha (initiates) in the traditional initiation schools, known as amabhuma, are painful to us as the ANC,” ANC provincial secretary Lubabalo Mabuyane said in a statement.
“Government is doing all in its power to ensure that the passage from boyhood to manhood is a safe education and good transition for our young boys. Reports of deaths related [to] physical abuse are disturbing us. We call on communities, amakhankatha neeNgcibi, and families of the initiates to play their role in ensuring abakhwetha are safe during their ulwaluko process,” he said.
There was no need for any of them to die or become a victim of abuse. “We can stop this if we work together as a collective. These deaths and abuse of abakhwetha must fall and must stop now.”
All stakeholders had to make sure that ulwaluko was conducted according to the tradition and anyone in breach of this had to be arrested. Communities had to report any wrongdoing, Mabuyane said.
According to media reports, the provincial health department has confirmed that eight initiates died this week in botched procedures, and seven people had been arrested in connection with the botched circumcision of one initiate.
African News Agency
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