Female Genital Mutilation has received a lot of attention over the past decade for very good reasons — the practice is abominable. Another dangerous form of genital mutilation doesn’t receive as much attention, however — traditional initiation rituals in some developing countries that often involve ritual circumcision under extremely unsanitary and dangerous conditions.

The Daily Telegraph (UK) recently reported that just in South Africa 20 boys died from various causes while undergoing such initiation rites. Several of the boys died from complications related to botched circumcisions. According to the Telegraph,

Some children have been dumped at local hospitals with advanced gangrene of the penis, leading the national health department to draw up guidelines for those who carry out circumcisions to learn the rudiments of surgical hygiene.

Other boys died from starvation, pneumonia and other problems related to the often-harsh conditions under which male initiation ceremonies are conducted. A major concern of health authorities is that often ritual circumcision ceremonies will circumcised many boys with a single knife, posing major risks of spreading disease.

This problem is hardly unique to South Africa. This practice is common throughout much of Africa and other parts of the developing world. So far, though, it hasn’t received the attention it deserves.

Sources:

Kenya’s unkindest cut. Muliro Telewa, The BBC, August 14, 200.

Coming of age in South Africa remains a deadly ordeal. Tim Butcher, The Daily Telegraph (UK), July 23, 2001.

The Genital Mutilation — It’s Not Just for Women by Brian Carnell, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.

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