Johannesburg - The president of Contralesa, Kgosi Mokoena, said despite harsh temperatures in the Eastern Cape and other parts of the country, the initiation process for young boys will continue.
The country has witnessed very cold weather this week due to a cold front and snowfall in different provinces, such as Gauteng, Mpumalanga, and the Eastern Cape.
It has been reported that 18 boys have perished so far since the beginning of the winter initiation season. Their deaths were mainly due to dehydration.
“We have advised our colleagues in the Eastern Cape that they must make sure that there is enough firewood for our initiates to be warm at all times and that they must avoid sending them on some errands on the mountain,” Mokoena said.
Mokoena said that although the cold temperatures were worrisome, the traditional leaders could not halt the initiation process halfway because some of the boys were about to complete the process. He described the initiation process as very culturally rooted.
“The question is, when you abruptly stop it, where are they going to go? The boy initiates because they must complete some of them and will be back within a week or two. If we stopped it now, would it not be suicidal or unfair to the initiates? They have to soldier on,” he said.
Mokoena said he had been reassured that the owners of the initiation schools in the Eastern Cape were taking extra measures to ensure that the initiates were warm and not exposed to the cold.
But he said the problem was identifying the illegal schools, which would often report casualties or loss of life during the initiation process.
“Our challenge is the bogus or unregistered schools, of which you might not even know their whereabouts. We will know when someone takes us to the school and shows us that there is this school on this side.
‘We have declared that this time there will be no holy cows or untouchables.
“We have told law enforcement agencies to pounce on the people doing these things,” he said.
Mokoena said the police and traditional leaders have to work together to ensure the safety of initiates.
The Star