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initiation, mail & guardian, mmc, tmcM&G coverage of MMC leaves no stone unturned
Kim Johnson
27 July 2012
The Mail&Guardian gives readers the full story, laying bear the complexity surrounding male circumcision by featuring well-written, interesting and most of all comprehensive coverage on the topic.
Last week’s Mail&Guardian made male circumcision a priority running three articles of considerable size that were not only confined to the paper’s dedicated health section.
The first article titled ‘Clash of customs claims the lives of youths who would be men’ sprawled over a two-page spread, deals with the tug-of-war between culture and custom in the context of traditional male circumcision (TMC) and medical male circumcision (MMC).
The article goes on to highlight the stigma attached to the medical procedure among communities practicing traditional initiation rituals.
Although the article did not touch on traditional male circumcision practices in connection with HIV, it is a piece that gives unprecedented insight into the initiation ritual and communities’ fears of “cultural dilution” in the face of aggressive MMC roll-out.
Another article by health journalist Mia Malan picked up where the previous coverage left off, dealing with TMC and HIV in an interesting and readable way. Malan’s article centres on the story of a Zambian chief involved in a “cultural revolution”.
The article ‘speaks’ to the previous one, showing that culture is not in fact immutable in the eyes of those who practice it and that strong leadership is a key component in the rollout of MMC.
On hearing about the MMC as a method of HIV prevention, Zambian chief Jonathan Mumena has successfully introduced MMC into his community.
Mumena details how he was aware that, “…the Mumena people would look “strangely” upon this…” because male circumcision was not customary for them.
But leading by example, the chief and over 400 of the people within his Chiefdom have been circumcised at medical facilities.
The last news report reveals that African countries are faring very poorly in terms of reaching MMC targets.
According to the article, 14 African countries which would benefit most from MMC were selected by the World Health Organisation (WHO) five years ago.
But if these regions are to reap the full benefit from the preventative method they would have to circumcised 80 per cent of their male populations by 2015.
South Africa like the other countries is lagging behind in terms of this target, with only 8 per cent of men circumcised thus far.
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