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When one is fined for circumcision
2007-07-18 08:48:55
By Rose Mwalongo
I used to have a house girl who worked so hard that I had nothing to complain. I had stayed with her for a year when I fell ill and had to undergo a nasal operation the following week when her mother came all the way from her village wanting to take her daughter for some special rituals.
My husband and I pleaded with her to postpone the ritual for sometime until after my operation but the lady would not listen.
She explained that the relatives had already made all the preparations for the ritual which would involve a big festival and there was no way they could postpone it.
Everyone was excited, it seemed, by this important ritual. Even the house girl could not go about her cores properly as her mind was set for the ritual which would entail a lot of eating and drinking.
Her anxiety made her reveal to me what the ritual was: genital mutilation! I was very surprised.
So this is what had made the mother travel hundreds of kilometres from her village to take her daughter for a tradition that is now regarded as a crime!
I tried to put some senses into the lady and explained to her why the practice was bad but she would not hear anything. She even left our house a day earlier than she had planned. Her daughter also left.
I had almost forgotten all about this incident when something else happened in my village. A group of elders were complaining that someone had taken their son and reduced the size of what matters to a man.
According to the story, an educated son of theirs had taken his younger brother to town and sent him for circumcision.
The practice was not common in the village.
When the young man returned to his parents he complained to his father about what the brother had done to him.
There was an uproar in the village and a meeting of the elders had to be convened to look into the case.
After a lengthy deliberation, the elders decided to fine the brother for the offence he had committed. Thus he was ordered to pay to buy a cock and a tin of local brew, komoni, both of which to be given to the elders.
The elders had argued that the brother had done wrong to take his younger brother for circumcision as it was against their traditions.
Ironically the same elders okayed FGM as conforming to their traditions while in fact it was a criminal practice.
This is a typical case of the two faces of traditions which seem to contradict each other.
I have been trying to see how one can put senses into such a community so that they stop FGM and on the other hand encourage the circumcision of boys.
Currently, for example, Njombe and Makete districts have some of the highest HIV/Aids infections and this has to some extent been attributed to uncircumcised men and boys.
There is a need to educate the residents in the two districts the evils of FGM on one hand and how circumcision could reduce the number of new infections among them.
Of course it is different with those of their folk who live in the urban areas; these go to hospitals for circumcision.
Many NGOs have directed their efforts to campaign against FGM. This is very good. But I think it is also time they applied the same pressure to promote men circumcision.
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