The Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality, working with the key stakeholders is ready and able to deliver yet again a safe circumcision season as all systems are in place to guarantee the safety of initiates.
The Nelson Mandela Bay area is known to be one of the province’s safest areas for circumcision in the country. Last year summer season circumcision saw 4543 initiates going through the system. In all that number no injuries or death were reported.
Working closely with the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality Traditional Male Initiation Forum (NMBMTMIF) the metro has prepared all initiation site across the metro, coordination and plans with the South African Police Services is already in place to root out any criminal elements that happen within the initiation areas.
The NMBMTMIF is a forum made of stakeholders who actively participate in the circumcision custom. It includes circumcision surgeons and their assistants, elderly men from different communities, department of health and SAPS representatives with the metro public health as the coordinating entity.
An identification tag system has also been introduced to make sure that all circumcision surgeons (ingcibi) and their assistants (amakhankatha) have a formal identification while on site to guard against loitering and those who use the initiation areas as criminal activity hide outs. The metro is also working on improving access and fencing the initiation areas for a better controlled access.
Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality Mayoral Committee member for Public Health Thsonono Buyeye said the metro has done its groundwork and the collaborative efforts of all stakeholders was yielding positive results year in year out.
“We are pleased with our preparation, working with the forum, SAPS, parents and the elderly from all these areas, we are confident that we will yet again deliver a safe circumcision season.
Buyeye said issues that have been raised by communities through the forum have been attended to while a few are work in progress. “We remain resolute with our commitment to deliver an incident free season that will bring about dignity to this old custom,” said MMC Buyeye.
However, the metro remains worried about the lack of support from families of initiates who have underlying sicknesses, some chronic. Last summer alone about 173 initiates were treated on site due to illnesses such as severe headaches, eye infections, asthma attacks and other chronic illnesses like diabetes and high blood pressure.
“We encourage families to work with surgeon assistants (amakhankatha) to make sure that initiates who are prescribed specific medications to take them during initiation as this exposes them to unnecessary medical attention which could potentially lead to death,” said MMC Buyeye.
This year’s number of initiates is expected to be slightly less than last year as the 2022 numbers where influenced by the COVID19 pandemic backlog. The Eastern Cape MEC for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Zolile Williams recently announced 3 November 2023 as the official opening of the circumcision season for the Eastern Cape.
NMB Communications
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