Q: Why aren’t traditional initiation rituals in the Eastern Cape being properly monitored?
A: Who says they’re not being properly monitored?
Q: About 20 initiates have died so far this season ...
A: Your line of questioning is wrong — it’s accusatory. Did you check whether the rituals are being properly monitored? What measures did you use?
Q: Why are so many initiates dying when they shouldn’t be?
A: I don’t know if they shouldn’t be dying. People die every day from different causes. It’s the same with them. That is why we as the ECHTL said any initiate who wanted to go through the ritual first had to go for a medical check-up, because the initiates have different health challenges.
Q: So why aren’t they being properly screened?
A: That is also what we are grappling with. We need to scrutinise if they are being properly screened. Because out of these deaths you’ll find they die of chest problems and this and that, which probably should have been detected from the screening. Also, what we are experiencing is that they hide their chronic illnesses, and we have no way of detecting if a person is hiding something. Also, the parents hide [their medical conditions]. That is why we are insisting that health professionals do thorough check-ups before those ones go through the ritual.
Q: Those without underlying health issues are dying of dehydration, septicaemia and gangrene. Doesn’t this point to inadequate monitoring of the initiation ritual?
A: Only a few have died of gangrene and septicaemia. Predominantly, the problem is dehydration, and that is self-inflicted. They don’t want to drink water because of the teaching of their peers outside.
Q: Wouldn’t proper monitoring ensure initiates did drink water?
A: What I’m telling you is based on monitoring. If we did not do monitoring, we would not be giving you these facts.
Q: Why are communities hiding illegal schools from traditional leaders?
A: We are dealing with a society affected by apartheid and the politics of today, and these have killed all the relevant community structures and played down the role of traditional leadership in government.
Q: Is this why you don’t have the moral authority in communities to stop them sending boys to illegal schools?
A: Exactly. We are trying to bring back this authority.
Q: Meanwhile, the death toll keeps rising?
A: People see an opportunity to make money by doing illegal initiations.
Q: To what extent has initiation become an extortion racket?
A: It has not. There’s no extortion racket.
Q: Who’s making money from these proliferating illegal initiation schools?
A: Opportunistic traditional surgeons. Some of them have been arrested. We have about 24 cases of such people in the present initiation season.
Q: Aren’t they involved in criminal syndicates?
A: We haven’t heard of that in the Eastern Cape. But we need to make would-be initiates and their families aware they must not go to illegal traditional surgeons.
Q: They’re also dying at legal schools, aren’t they?
A: Yes, because of underlying health problems and dehydration.
Q: Not botched circumcisions?
A: No.
Q: Why are they dying of septicaemia?
A: If the person monitoring you knows what he’s doing, you are not supposed to die from septicaemia.
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