Media must provide context when tradition and medicine collide
1 October 2005 | Government Policy | Circumcision | The Media and HIV/AIDS
Two traditions that bear an impact on HIV/AIDS prevention have caught the attention of the press over the last few weeks.
The National Council of Provinces (NCOP) is scheduled to hold public hearings on the Children's Rights Bill, which is stirring controversy amongst traditionalists because of its proposed outright ban on virginity testing. But it is not only traditional culture that is at stake, according to some, but also the HIV-prevention benefits of these practices.
Bongani Mthethwa's report in the Sunday Times on September 25 noted the challenge the Children's Rights Bill poses.
“Under a section on social, cultural and religious practices, the Bill condemns anyone who takes part in what it calls genital mutilation and calls for the prosecution of such people under criminal law.”
While some hail the benefits of virginity testing for HIV/AIDS prevention, others say human rights are violated by the practice.
“[Promoting virginity] is a good cause, given our current Aids pandemic, but we still need to take a stand as a country aspiring to be fully democratic. Like many parts of the developing world we face difficult choices and they are often choices that appear to be conflicts between tradition and modernity,” University of KwaZulu-Natal anthropologist Suzanne Leclerc-Madlala told the Sunday Times.
But according to the report, the Bill does not ban traditional male circumcision practiced by Xhosas, creating perceptions of double-standards and even tribal bias.
Male circumcision has hit the headlines for different reasons recently, with HIV/AIDS expert, Francois Venter, advocating circumcision as probably being the “ best available AIDS vaccine against the virus in the country”. In an Associated Press(AP)article, Venter, who is clinical director of the Reproductive Health Research Unit at the University of Witwatersrand, encouraged the TAC to promote circumcision as a prevention tool given that existing methods were “failing to slow the spread of the epidemic”.
Venter told a congress of health activists in the Treatment Action Campaign that a recent survey in Soweto indicated that circumcised men were 65 percent less likely to contract AIDS than those who had not been circumcised.
"We dream of a vaccine which has this efficacy," said Venter. "The results are phenomenal."
The APreport highlighted the dangers of traditional circumcision in terms of HIV/AIDS prevention. Some traditional communities in South Africa practice circumcision, but there have long been calls for tighter medical controls to limit health risks from blunt and contaminated instruments.
"We don't want our men to go to the chop shop but have medical circumcision," said prominent HIV/AIDS activist and head of the TAC, Zackie Achmat.
While using “blunt and contaminated instruments” is a concern in traditional male circumcision, the identification of virgins could pose another dilemma. Although promoting abstinence, virginity testing can also pinpoint likely victims for men who believe the myth that sex with a virgin will cure them of HIV/AIDS.
The Sunday Timesarticle presents a fairly well-rounded story; but one interesting aspect not explored in the article is what our own Health Minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, thinks about these issues. What is her take on the various initiatives that people are taking to save their communities from the devastation of AIDS?
Unfortunately an extensive search revealed that Tshabalala-Msimang has been tip-toeing cautiously, being mindful of her every move. It appears she has not said anything publicly about either of the contentious issues of virginity testing or circumcision, preferring to stick to her familiar chant of “Garlic diet! Garlic diet!”
(Tshabalala-Msimang's medically unsubstantiated olive oil and garlic campaign diet has fuelled public confusion since it was first reported by the South African Press Association among others in 2003. But this needs to be the subject of another blog all on its own …)
Back to the Sunday Timesreport: it would've been interesting to hear what the Health Minister's stance is on a Bill that the article claims has taken on “tribalistic undertones”. The same Bill has many virginity testers in KwaZulu-Natal arguing that the government has double standards as it continues to protect male circumcision.
The media's role is vital, as it is with any other issue, but especially in this instance where two worlds seem to be at loggerheads with one another: the traditional versus the medical. Each side is arguing that their methods are the better option in AIDS prevention. In this context of confusion and contestation, it's imperative that the media provide clear, considered reporting for the many South Africans personally affected, and for the politicians currently designing new laws that will have a long-lasting impact on all of us. - Lunga Madlala
