Eastern Cape Health MEC Pumulo Masualle is to meet traditional leaders over what his department said on Wednesday was the “mushrooming"” of illegal circumcision schools in the province.
Department spokesman Sizwe Kupelo said that last weekend over a hundred under age boys were illegally circumcised in the Pondoland area. On Wednesday morning, police shut down an illegal school in the Bizana area with 38 would be initiates.
There have already been two deaths during the current winter circumcision season. A youth who died in hospital last Friday after being rescued from a school by department officials, and another died at a school earlier last week. Kupelo said Masualle was so concerned that he was planning to meet the Eastern Cape House of Traditional Leaders.
A related problem was that most of the youths now in schools had simply abandoned their mid year exams, he said. The department was going to deal “head on” with those behind illegal schools. “We’ve got names,” Kupelo said. “We are going to go out there and search for them.”
Issued by: Department of Health, Eastern Cape Provincial Government
18 June 2009
Source: Department of Health, Eastern Cape Provincial Government (http:www.ecdoh.gov.za)
