Traditional initiation schools must modernise to avoid initiate deaths - Parly health committee

CAPE TOWN - Parliament's health committee chairperson, Doctor Sibongiseni Dhlomo, said that traditional initiation schools must modernise the way they function to avoid the deaths of initiates.

He said this could be done without compromising on tradition and custom.

Dhlomo is proposing health screening for initiates before they enter the school and if they are not physically fit, that their initiation be postponed.

"If there's a family that’s got haemophilia, you will not allow that child to go there. Haemophilia is a bleeding disorder. Even a small bleed, if you can't stop it, so you would encourage the family to do it differently. So, anybody going into the initiation school, if they could be encouraged to go to a clinic and be examined and given a clean bill of health."

Dhlomo also questioned why the custom required initiates to be deprived of water, since many deaths were as a result of dehydration rather than the circumcision procedure itself.

"We now know that in communities where that is followed closely, we don't have these deaths, because these deaths are not all over. They are in specific areas in a specific province."

Dhlomo said that the Health Department could only play an advisory role on this matter but that the Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Department had to take the lead in dealing with traditional authorities.