Author: Guardian Africa Network

Circumcision: South Africans should stop allowing our boys to be butchered

In my village in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa, a male who has not undergone circumcision is called ‘inkwenkwe’ – a boy.

A young man who has undergone this rite of passage takes great pride in it. If he has not, he is not considered an adult, and will not be respected by men and women alike. He won’t be able to sit with the village men during ceremonial functions or important discussions. He’ll be shunned and told that his foreskin smells. Women who date him will also be looked down upon for dating an ‘inkwenkwe’.

As a young girl growing up in Mbizana, Eastern Pondoland, every year I looked forward to the celebrations at the end of each circumcision season. I had thought this was the way things had always been done here among my Pondo people, but in his book Faku: Rulership and Colonialism in the Mpondo Kingdom, Timothy J Stapleton writes: “Sometime in the mid-1820s, Faku prohibited circumcision, which was the customary initiation for young men in Xhosa-speaking societies… Oral informants in the early twentieth century stated that circumcision frequently made the initiates ill, probably through infection.”

The reason our King prohibited circumcision in the early 19th century is increasingly evident; over 180 boys have been admitted to hospital and 35 have died so far since the initiation season started this year alone, many due to botched procedures.

As the mother of an 11-year-old boy and responsible for his health, I have to question: is this practice justifiable in the 21st century? In a society that shuns those who are not circumcised, does my son really have a choice about keeping his penis intact or will he just have to submit to having part of himself amputated because ‘it is the way things are done here’.

We celebrate our cultural practices, yet we silently bury the dead, and the victims who live continue to suffer at the hands of the men who cut them.

Boys from the Xhosa tribe who have undergone a circumcision ceremony are pictured near Qunu in the Eastern Cape on June 28 2013. (Pic: AFP)

As a mother with a duty to protect my son, I find I can no longer celebrate this customary rite of passage. I am now faced with the daunting task of speaking to my family about this. As mothers, we are told to stay out of it because this is a sacred rite of passage that boys must go through. Do I have a right to say no when it comes to my child?

The entire subject is deeply taboo. We passively accept that scores of young men in our country will inevitably die each year after being circumcised and that many more will be permanently maimed. Many young men end up losing the one thing they ‘go to the mountains’ to attain: their manhood.

It is not only the surgical side of the tradition that is cause for concern. Boys in my village go through initiation to get a pass to drink alcohol in front of and with the elders. Often we have seen these boys change from polite and well-behaved into abusive, violent, drunken young men. My cousin came back from initiation severely beaten, and a friend so badly beaten that he couldn’t walk for months. A neighbour’s son came back permanently mentally disturbed by what he had experienced.

I am angry at the complacency of our men and the silence of our women in the face of this horror. So many young mothers are appalled by the prospect of their sons being circumcised, yet tell me they feel powerless to stop it.

It is recognised that some deeply entrenched harmful cultural practices need ending with legislation. In some areas of the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal, for instance, young girls were legally abducted and raped in a traditional marriage practice called ukuthwala. Today it is illegal.

Likewise, female genital mutilation is now outlawed in eighteen countries, including South Africa. An estimated 100–140 million women worldwide have suffered FGM, and about three million girls and women continue to be mutilated every year. As awareness spreads and opposition grows, however, attitudes are changing. A spotlight is being directed on the shame and secrecy surrounding FGM, and more and more people are starting to appreciate that there is no developmental, religious or health reason to mutilate any girl or woman.

We must appreciate that cultures evolve, and we must leave harmful practices behind. Can we really say that if we decided to stop the circumcision of our boys we would lose our essential sense of identity as black South Africans? If we have banned the genital butchery of girls, why do we allow it for boys?

Fezisa Mdibi is a freelance journalist and poet. Follow her on Twitter: @fezisa. This post was first published on the Guardian Africa Network.

10 years ago

Okwiri Oduor wins 2014 Caine Prize for African Writing

Nairobi-based author Okwiri Oduor. (Pic: caineprize.com)

Kenyan author Okwiri Oduor has won the 2014 Caine Prize for African Writing for her short story My Father’s Head.

Described as “an uplifting story about mourning,” Nairobi-born Oduor’s 2013 work begins with the narrator’s attempts to remember what her father’s face looked like as she struggles to cope with his loss, and follows her as she finds the courage to remember.

“Okwiri Oduor is a writer we are all really excited to have discovered,” said Scottish author and chief judge Jackie Kay, as the prize was presented at the Bodleian Library in Oxford tonight. “My Father’s Head’ is an uplifting story about mourning – Joycean in its reach. She exercises an extraordinary amount of control and yet the story is subtle, tender and moving. It is a story you want to return to the minute you finish it.”

Now in its fifteenth year, the annual £10 000 award celebrates short stories written by African authors published in English.

Oduor, who is now working on her first novel, had been shortlisted with South Africa’s Diane Awerbuck for her short story Phosphorescence, Efemia Chela from both Ghana and Zambia for Chicken, Zimbabwe’s Tendai Huchu for The Intervention, and Kenya’s Billy Kahora for The Gorilla’s Apprentice. Each will take home £500 prize money.

Oduor will be able to take up a month’s residence at Georgetown University in Washington DC, and will be invited to appear at the Open Book Festival in Cape Town in September, the Storymoja Hay Festival in Nairobi and the Ake Festival in Nigeria.

The Caine Prize is named after the late Sir Michael Caine, former chairman of the Booker Prize management committee.

Previous winners include Nigeria’s Tope Folarin in 2013 and Zimbabwe’s NoViolet Bulawayo in 2011.

10 years ago

Niger’s first slavery conviction: Man jailed for 4 years

A man has been sentenced to four years in jail in Niger’s first conviction for slavery.

Elhadji Djadi Raazikou (63) was convicted of having a “fifth wife” – a practice in which girls, usually of slave descent, are treated as property because local Islamic law permits only four wives.

Known as wahaya in the local Tamasheq language, they are seen as a sign of prestige among wealthy buyers in Niger and northern Nigeria’s Hausa ethnicity. No marriage takes place, depriving the woman of legal rights, and men have several wahaya.

“They are treated solely as property and face a lifetime of regular rape, physical and psychological abuse and forced labour,” said Jakub Sobik of the international pressure group Anti-Slavery International.

Touareg girls, claimed to be slaves, attend a ceremony where their chief, who had promised to release 7 000 slaves, denied slavery exists. Picture taken March 5 2005. (Reuters)

Raazikou allegedly bought the girl for 200 000 CFA francs (£248) and put her to work as a domestic drudge for one of his four other wives. He had been detained in the town of Birnin Konni since the local anti-slavery organisation Timidria alerted authorities in 2010.

“We hope this latest success will be a catalyst for others to start coming forward,” said Abankawel Illitine, a Timidria board member.

It is the first successful such prosecution since a Nigerian woman challenged her former master in the Court of Justice of the West African regional body Ecowas six years ago.

The girls are often born into slavery in a rigid caste system where “noble-borns”, usually lighter-skinned Moors, indirectly or directly own darker-skinned Moors or black Africans. The girls, almost always sold before they turn 15 and frequently as young as nine, sometimes change hands several times.

Up to 130 000 people are trapped in modern slavery in Niger, with women and children bearing the brunt. Some wahaya are forced to wear a heavy brass ankle ring. In neighbouring Mauritania, those old enough to cover their hair are often forced to leave their arms bare – against rural tradition – to enable them to carry heavy burdens.

Much of the abuse comes from the other wives, whose position depends on being able to remain a spouse. “A wahaya can regain their freedom if their first-born is a boy, because the husband will then either divorce another of his wives or he must liberate the mother,” Illitine said. In Raazikou’s case, he tried to divorce one of his other four wives to marry a fifth, the court heard.

Slavery has existed across the Sahel and Sahara since Arabic-speaking Moors raided African villages and launched the trans-Saharan slave trade centuries ago. Some proponents justify its continuation through Quranic texts that permitted the enslavement of women captured in jihad (holy war), although it is practised even in countries that never experience jihad.

Talak inherited her slave status from her parents, who were captured in a raid by Tuaregs against their village. “My work load was awful, unimaginable … [My master] considered me to have no soul. He would use me for pleasure while hate burned in my heart,” she told rights activists after running away.

Mauritania was the world’s last country to abolish slavery, in 1981, but campaigners say it is difficult to overturn a deeply engrained custom among rural communities across the several Saharan nations.

“Wahaya goes on with the consent of traditional chiefs, who are in fact the ones who own the most women,” said a local chief in the northern Nigerian state of Sokoto, which borders Niger.

The chief, who asked not to be named, said nomadic Tuaregs frequently crossed the Sahara to reach the former Islamic caliphate, where the custom of buying girls was well established. “There are villages where 80% of girls came to Nigeria so young they don’t know anything about where they come from, or anything about their birth families,” he said.

10 years ago

‘Rescuing’ gay people from Africa is no answer to homophobic laws

The recent passing of the anti-gay law in Uganda and the South African government’s mealy-mouthed reaction to it demand attention.

Internationally, South Africa sponsored and is leading the first ever UN resolution on sexual orientation and gender identity. South Africa also boasts a post-apartheid Constitution that explicitly affirms equality and non-discrimination on the basis of sexuality and gender. Yet our government cannot muster the political stealth to speak against (rather than just about) homophobia when it really counts – as is the case with the recent passing of the homophobic law.

Uganda President Yoweri Museveni signs an anti-homosexual bill into law on February 24 2014. (Pic: Reuters)

In a statement shortly following the law was passed, the government said that “South Africa takes note of the recent developments regarding the situation of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexual, Transsexual and Intersex persons (LGBTI) worldwide….[and] will, through existing diplomatic channels, be seeking clarification on these developments from many capitals around the world.”

But what’s to clarify? This indicates a deep reluctance to name recent events in Uganda and to take a position on them. It also implies, through the seeking of clarification, that there might be some legitimate rationale for criminalising your own citizens because of their sexual or gender identity.

The South African Human Rights Commission took a bolder position and “strongly reject[s] the notion that the freedom to live and love without fear of violence and regardless of one’s sexual orientation is part of a rights framework from western countries. The struggle for these and other freedoms has been at the heart of liberation struggles throughout the African continent.”

The ANC blocked a motion in Parliament against the law, reflecting its ambivalence to speak out. On the contrary, the former president of Mozambique Joaquim Chissano’s open letter to African leaders is an example of the kind of leadership present persecutions demand.

The anti-gay law and other legislation of its kind give state legitimacy to violence against people on the basis of their real or perceived sexual orientation and/and gender identity. It will also, as is already the case, prompt the forced migration of some LGBTI people.

The law feeds a narrative that positions citizens with non-conforming sexualities and genders as outsiders to the dominant culture of the nation. This is linked to the false notion that homosexuality is unAfricanand, therefore that homophobia isn’t.

In its self-appointed leadership role on LGBTI equality internationally, the South African government should readily offer a counter-narrative to those that peddle prejudice in the name of “Africanness”.

Homophobia in Africa represents a set of complex and intersecting issues – deeply routed in the continent’s colonial past. Violent inscriptions of race, sexuality, ethnicity and gender took place under colonialism and are linked to present-day norms around sexuality. These historical continuities, and how sexuality is racialised, are mostly entirely absent in discussions on homophobia.

Drawing on the ‘savages-victims-saviours’ construct of law professor Makau Mutua (pdf), the west has a keen interest in homophobia that is often framed within these sets of relations. Lurking within much of the public discourse on homophobia in Africa is the notion of the civilising mission of Eurocentric culture (and its human rights frameworks) that will save African culture, and the victims thereof, from its barbarism and its savagery.

One example of this is a recently launched online fundraising effort initiated in the US.

It is a “Rescue fund to help LGBT people escape Africa” and is aimed at “Gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgender people persecuted and trapped in African countries that criminalise their sexuality”. The campaign states that “by contributing to this Rescue Fund you will help me [the initiator of the fund] to save more gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex people from Africa escape terrifying persecution.” An online counter shows the money is flowing in. If one donates to “save” an LGBTI person in Africa one is granted a status recognition originally titled as “ultimate saviour”. There are also prizes for donors such as “Nelson Mandela coins” for “passport providers”.

People stand on a float holding signs in reaction to Uganda’s law banning homosexuality. Hundreds of people gathered on the streets of Green Point in Cape Town, South Africa, on March 1 2014 to take part in the Gay Pride Parade. (Pic: AFP)

The forced flight of LGBTI from persecutory regimes will require interventions to provide places of refuge and safety. However, promoting an “escape” from Africa to “greener” US pastures, without simultaneously addressing the underlying conditions that force this migration, is dangerous and opportunistic. Dislocated from Africa-based struggles for social justice these feel-good interventions offer no long-term solution to the systemic issues that drive homophobia. At best they are palliative and patronising, at worst they reinforce the victimhood of Africans and the saviour status of westerners.

This is part of the logic that keeps the “homosexuality is un-African” discourse in play.

Other more pernicious saviours are those US religious conservatives who have actively promoted homophobic ideologies across the world and are now pushing such legislation in the US. There is much to be done to challenge these religious groupings and leaders on their home soils to expose their active undermining of sexual and gender rights both domestically and transnationally.

State-sponsored homophobia serves to keep certain power relations intact. Battles over power and identity are increasingly being played out on the bodies of LGBTI people. These battles relate to, among others: contestations around what it means to be “authentically” African; citizens’ pressuring for democracy, inclusion and leadership accountability; basic needs being met in a context of global inequality wherein rich elites govern over the poor; and women increasingly asserting their sexual rights. The scapegoating of LGBTI people and other “deviants” deflects from this inter-connected matrix of issues in which all Africans have a stake.

In this context, South Africa’s tiptoe diplomacy on homophobia in Africa exposes the troubling underbelly of current leadership on democracy and human rights. Whilst Jon Qwelane remains Ambassador to Uganda, in the face of his imminent court appearance for homophobic hate speech, perhaps government’s tread is more firm-footed than might appear.

Melanie Judge is an activist and social commentator. Follow her on Twitter: @melaniejudge.

10 years ago

CAR’s sectarian violence forces thousands into hiding

The Central African Republic is in danger of becoming the world’s latest failed state, with increasing sectarian violence sparking a humanitarian disaster. Médecins Sans Frontières’ Dutch general director, Arjan Hehenkamp, has recently returned from the country. He sent this harrowing report:

I’m just back from Bossangao, a town of 45 000 people 330km northwest of the capital, Bangui. From the air, you can see tin rooftops and big compounds, and it looks like a prosperous and bustling regional centre. But then you start looking for people and you see that there’s no one there – all the houses are deserted. Most of Bossangao’s inhabitants have gathered in a church compound, an area the size of nine football pitches, where 30 000 people are enclosed by their own fear.

(Pic: Médecins Sans Frontières)

The country has been gripped by violence since the coup d’etat in March, and religion is becoming a part of the conflict – basically everyone is scared of being targeted by everyone else.

The church compound is like an open-air prison. People don’t even dare to go and fetch the wood they need for cooking. They don’t dare to go out of that protected zone back to their houses – where they would have a roof over their heads and some proper facilities – even though their houses are sometimes only a few hundred metres away.

(Pic: Médecins Sans Frontières)

When you walk into the compound, you’re faced by a teeming mass of people, and you have to navigate through all the families that have set themselves up there. They’re living, they’re cooking, they’re defecating, all in the same compound, and they’ve been there for three weeks. They’ve recently got some shelter materials, but otherwise they’re living in the open air, surrounded by mud and garbage.

Our medical teams are working in the compound, and we’ve set up water and sanitation facilities. We’re pulling out all the stops to provide them with basic amenities and medical care, but at the end of the day it’s an untenable situation. It’s just not suitable for a 30 000-strong group of people – the risk of disease outbreaks is too great.

There are 1 000 to 1 500 people, also mostly Christians, staying in another protected zone around the hospital – they have slightly more space, but in essence it’s the same thing. And there’s a 500-strong group of mostly Muslims in a school nearby – testament to the religious divisions that have crept into the conflict.

(Pic: Médecins Sans Frontières)

We are working in the church compound, and also in the hospital, with both international and local staff. The hospital provides inpatient, outpatient and surgical services, and is functioning at a reasonable level, but it needs to be cranked up in order to deal with the numbers of patients we’re seeing and the kinds of injuries they’re arriving with – injuries which are quite horrific and difficult to treat.

One of our patients was a man who had been shot four times in the back, and his head had been partially hacked off by a machete. The surgeon tried to sew it back on and save the patient, but sadly he died.

Another was a child from a village outside Bossangao. His parents had tied him to the house with chains because he had diabetes and was prone to running around and having fits. But they lost the key to the padlock, so when they had to flee into the bush they couldn’t take him with them. When they came back he was still alive, but he had been slashed badly across his arms when he held them up to protect himself.

(Pic: Médecins Sans Frontières)

This is the level of brutality and violence that is affecting people, and we are probably only seeing a part of it. Outside Bossangoa, we know there are troops and local defence groups going around and seeking people out, engaging in targeted killing or small-scale massacres. Our teams have come across sites of executions, and some have actually witnessed executions.

The villages along the road from Bossangao to Bangui are deserted. For 120km, there’s no one there – 100 000 people have disappeared and fled into the bush. We can’t reach them, and they can’t reach our services. This is a major humanitarian and medical concern.

Compared to last year, when there was already a chronic humanitarian crisis in Central African Republic, the crisis has doubled, the capacity of the state has vanished completely, and the humanitarian capacity has halved.

There’s an acute need for aid organisations to deploy themselves with an international presence outside the capital, and in particular for the UN to lead the way in doing so. An international presence has a protective effect – I’m pretty sure that if MSF had not been present in Bossangoa, the level of violence and killings would have been much higher than it was.

Since the armed takeover in March, the violence hasn’t really abated. There have been violent reprisals and counter-reprisals. The violence continues, but now it is just more targeted and out of sight.