Shadreck’s siblings Sydney Chitimbe, nine and Harrison Somanje, 11, went missing after being sent to deliver a funeral message to relatives staying around Soche Quarry, 5 Km away from home in Blantyre.

Kingsley Sabuleni, 20, Kasim Samson 16, Mabvuto Masache, 20, Wasili Mndala 15 and Peter Nyambi, 28 of Misesa in Blantyre abducted Sydney and Harrison to thezo or jando (an initiation camp) where the two boys were forced to face the knife against their will!

“The group was arrested and charged with unlawful wounding. Some administrators at the thezo revealed that some young men brought the boys to them,” said Blantyre Police Spokesperson Elizabeth Divala then.

She further disclosed that the victims were sent to Malawi’s major referral hospital, Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital in Blantyre for treatment of their wounds after nursing the sores at home.

“Hospital authorities raised concern that cases of forced circumcisions are on the rise and may lead to the spread of HIV and AIDS in the country,” said Divala adding that it had not yet then been established whether each boy was circumcised with his own razor blade.

Social-scientifically, human behaviours and cultural values however senseless or distractive they may appear from the personal and cultural stand point of others, have their own meaning and fulfill a function for those who practice them elsewhere on the planet.

A Malawi Human Rights Commission (MHRC) research team led by Team Leader Mac Donald Mumba had however, revealed that despite thezo or jando being a cultural pride for Malawians it increases boys’ risk of contracting HIV and AIDS.

In Malawi the number of boys that may have died from complications or infections during or after undergoing the cultural practice of traditionally circumcising boys is yet to be uncovered.

But in South Africa, few years ago the media reported that some boys died soon after undergoing for traditional circumcision and the issue even ignited a hot debate in that vast country.

Back to Malawi according to MHRC in some areas sometimes boys as young as six years undergo for this initiation rite.

The young men are confined to a place that is variously called depending on the particular locality and the period for the initiation differ from place to place but range from two weeks to two months.

The boys’ confinement is located away from the initiates’ homes and is usually near a river.

Before the boys go to the confinement according to MHRC findings their parents prepare a chicken, money and some flour for the village headman as a way of requesting for his permission for the initiation to take place.

The parents also prepare some money and flour that are given to the ngaliba (the administrator of the circumcision in the confinement and nakanga (counselor) also the overall in-charge of the initiate for the period of confinement.

During the boys’ stay in confinement lombwes or coordinators teach the young men about good traditional manners including to respect parents and all elders in society as well as attend funerals after getting out of the initiation camp.

The instructions however, are usually done through songs that are characterized by obscene language.

Mercy Mankhambera was one of the researchers who was involved in the selection of key themes during the Male Genital Mutilation (MGM)/circumcision at MHRC.

She said although the cultural practices done in thezo or jando had their positive sides through teaching boys some good manners, the ritual also put the young men’s health and lives at risk.

“The practice in jando and thezo involves genital mutilation that can have some health implications. In this process the boys undergo circumcision where instruments are crude and not sterilized used,” said Mankhambera.

She further explained that the ritual could also lead to uncontrollable hemorrhage, acute pain and chronic infection that could lead to infertility and anemia because it is not done with hygienic sterilized instruments.

“Genital mutilation can also be traumatizing for any child who undergoes the practice. The study found that a big knife or sharp fingernails were used for the operation. Sometimes one tool was used on all participants. This practice is amenable to the spread of Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) including HIV and AIDS,” said Mankhambera.

She further expounded that the encouragement to the boys to have sex with girls after leaving their initiation camps was also dangerous.

“These acts not only expose young boys and girls to STIs including HIV and AIDS, but rather could also lead to teenage pregnancies and eventual dropout from school. Thus, the practices as much negatively affect the children’s right to health also did on their right to education,” said Mankhambera.

In fact as the feature appears on Africanews.com a week has elapsed since schools opened in Malawi, but some hundreds of school-going boys in the lakeshore district of Mangochi in the southern region of the country are still in initiation camps for traditional circumcision.

The boys have also to spend a good number of days naked without bathing at the camp to allow the sores after circumcision to heal.

Before their graduation from the initiation camp, the boys are also encouraged to have sex and are warned that if they do not their manhood would shrink and become too small for sex.

They are also advised to have sex with girls often with a belief that the practice helps the boys to release energy in or else would experience frequent back aches.

Jafali Amani, 32, based in Lilongwe but from the lakeshore district of Mangochi who had undergone the initiation ceremony at the age of 12 said that those that do not go for the initiation process are often treated as outcasts.

“Actually I had no choice but to undergo for the ceremony because my father and uncles threatened me with unspecified action if I would not go for it. In fact everyone who has undergone for the initiation ceremony is highly respected in society,” he said.

Group Village Headman Mtumbwe from Balaka in southern Malawi where MGM in form of traditional circumcision is practiced admitted that the practice puts lives of boys at risk of contracting STIs including HIV and AIDS.

“This is so because indeed one razor blade is often used for circumicising the initiates. But of late, after being sensitized on the dangers of HIV and AIDS by the National AIDS Commission (NAC) we are advising our counselors such as ngalibas, lombwes, nakangas and chitonombes before going into initiation camps with the boys to make sure that every initiate is circumcised by his own razor blade and not one razor blade shared with anyone,” he said.

The chief further explained that some elders in his area also routinely go into the initiation camps to monitor the counselors to make sure that they are using one razor blade per initiate.

“We even agreed that ngalibas, chitonombes, nakangas and lombwes who would not follow these rules must be suspended from initiation camps,” said Mtumbwe.

And commenting on claims that male circumcision be done in Malawi because it reduces men’s chances of contracting HIV and AIDS including preventing cervical cancer in women, the former NAC Executive Director Bizwick Mwale said there was a need for such claims to be backed by evidence.

“We need as a country to first conduct a credible research on the matter and not just rush at making such a conclusion,” he said then.

Mwale added that Malawi is one of the countries in southern Africa rich with some cultural practices that were encouraging the spread of HIV and AIDS and also the region with the highest number of people with the virus worldwide.

The former NAC Chairperson Nicholas Chitimba also cautioned stakeholders in Malawi rushing at concluding that male circumcision alone does reduce the spread of HIV and AIDS.

“Just getting circumcised is not an outright warrant that one is protected against contracting HIV and AIDS,” he said.

Chitimba said if undergoing male circumcision alone had the power of reducing chances of contracting HIV and AIDS then a snap survey which was done in Mangochi where most men go for circumcision at an early age would have not been diagnosed HIV positive.

“To protect oneself against HIV and AIDS therefore, requires a combination of factors to be put into practice. One can for example, still contract the virus through unprotected sex regardless of having undergone circumcision,” he said.

But in a Male Circumcision Pilot Program in Lilongwe, Malawi Jaehyun Jung a second year student at the School of International and Public Affairs Columbia University, New York City said ‘Male circumcision is one method of effective prevention against HIV and AIDS.

“In Malawi, however, male circumcision is not the predominant practice. Project Malawi conducted a pilot program of male circumcision for villagers with fully subsidized operation costs,” said the researcher disclosing that after conducting sensitization programmes to create demand for circumcision, the rate of male circumcision has increased.

He disclosed that this pilot project allowed them to consider the acceptability of male circumcision in Malawi.

“Unsafe surgery, a long recovery period, religious beliefs, and age were the most-cited reasons Malawians rejected male circumcision. We also have found three critical barriers—operation cost, transportation cost, and opportunity cost—which can largely explain the limited accessibility of male circumcision procedures,” said Jaehyun.

He explained that male circumcision is the surgical removal of the foreskin of the penis.

“The procedure is one of the oldest and most common surgeries in the world. It’s typically performed for social, cultural, religious or medical reasons. Since male circumcision was indicated as possible protective measure heterosexual HIV transmission in 1986, many studies have shown a negative correlation between male circumcision and HIV prevalence in Africa,” he said.

Jaehyun added that it was significant that three recent studies based on randomized controlled trials in South Africa, Kenya, and Uganda suggested up to a 60 percent reduction in heterosexually-acquired HIV infection among circumcised men.

He however, explained that in Malawi those that have undergone through traditional circumcision were still at risk of contracting HIV and AIDS.

“Many of those circumcised may not have the full benefits of male circumcision because most circumcisions in Malawi follow traditional procedures, which, unlike medical circumcision operations, don’t completely remove the foreskin,” said Jaehyun.

Malawi Government according to Deputy Health Minister Halima Daudi plans to circumcise 80 in every 100 of sexually active men in age bracket of 15-49 as a means of curbing the spread of HIV and AIDS in the country.

“The WHO recommended Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision as an additional important strategy for HIV prevention, particularly in settings with high HIV prevalence and low levels of male circumcision, where the public health benefits will be maximized,” she said.

Daudi further explained that a one-time intervention, Medical Male Circumcision provides men life-long partial protection against HIV as well as other STIs.

“It should always be considered as part of a comprehensive HIV prevention package of services and be used in conjunction with other methods of prevention such as female and male condoms,” she said.

This follows after in 2007, UNAIDS and WHO strongly recommended male circumcision as a key strategy for reducing female to male transmission of HIV, particularly in regions where the incidence of heterosexually-acquired HIV infection is high, such as Sub-Saharan Africa.

Moreover, considering the lifelong benefits, male circumcision is currently considered the most cost-effective and sustainable prevention against HIV and AIDS.

Malawi, a landlocked country in southeastern Africa, has one of the highest prevalence rates of HIV and AIDS in the world.

The 2010 UNAIDS HIV report 104 Consilience indicates that HIV prevalence in Malawi in 2009 was 11 percent, which is more than twice that of the Sub-Saharan African average (5 percent) and thirteen times higher than the world average (0.8 percent).

Nearly one million people are estimated to live with HIV, and many of those do not know they are infected.

Furthermore, every year 73,000 people are newly infected with HIV, and the primary mode of HIV transmission is unprotected heterosexual intercourse, which accounts for 88 percent of HIV infections in Malawi.

According to the 2010 Male Circumcision Situation Analysis Report in Malawi, only one in five men reports that he has been circumcised, which demonstrates that male circumcision is not a predominant practice in the country.