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Today In History |
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On September 8, 1905
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Pitts Pirates strand NL record 18 men on base and lose to Reds 8-3
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Virginity testing - absence of a small tissue becomes big issue |
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 DURBAN, 8 Sep 2005 (IRIN/PLUSNEWS)
- This weekend, thousands of Zulu maidens will make their way to
Nongoma in northern KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) Province, to participate in
'Umhlanga', the annual reed dance ceremony celebrating virginity.
The
traditional gathering takes place in the wake of controversy
surrounding the soon-to-be-outlawed testing of virgins: the Children's
Bill was approved by parliament in July 2005 and, if passed by the
National Council of Provinces, the legislation will impose an outright
ban on the custom.
Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini lashed out at the government, saying he
was opposed to the ban, while traditionalists and other groups vowed to
defy the law.
Nomagugu Ngobese, founder of the Nomkhubulwane
Culture and Youth Development Organisation, is an angry woman. One of
the more prominent virginity testers, Ngobese has spent the last seven
years advocating the practice, and considers herself a "professional".
"They
are trying to ban our culture, religion - but it's not going to work.
I'll never stop; the day I stop is when they [young girls] stop coming
to me," she said.
Two weeks before the reed dance ceremony, they were still making their way to Ngobese.
On
an overcast Sunday morning in Pietermaritzburg, KZN's capital, there
was a palpable sense of excitement as about 120 young girls lined up in
leafy Alexander Park to submit themselves to a genital examination to
determine their virginity. The early arrivals sat around chatting in
groups in the brightly painted playground, waiting for "Auntie" to lead
them to a more sheltered part of the park.
A handful of mothers
huddled around the rubber-gloved Ngobese as she performed the
inspections on a grass mat. Ngobese uses a single pair of gloves while
examining the teenagers.
When a girl passes, the women clap and
ululate but when someone fails, an accusing silence follows the girl,
who is asked to sit in a private corner and wait for an older woman to
"counsel" her.
SELLING OUT AND CASHING IN?
Traditionally,
although young girls were often tested privately in their own homes,
the focus was not on the inspection - there was a high spiritual value
placed on virginity, instilled through instruction by older women, Dr
Queeneth Mkhabela-Castiano, a former lecturer in indigenous knowledge
systems, told PlusNews.
After falling into disuse, the practice
made a comeback around 10 years ago when the HIV/AIDS pandemic began to
take hold. The media also started taking an interest, churning out a
slew of reports on the inspections.
With all this attention,
virginity testing had inevitably become "commercialised", Mkhabela
observed. "It's out of control ... and the essence of it has been lost."
Individuals
rather than families were now at the forefront of the practice, and the
testers had succumbed to the hype by introducing gimmicks such as
certificates, she added.
Back at Alexander Park, one of the
testing "veterans", 18-year-old Zintle Dlamini, who has been getting
routine checks done since she was eight years old, sat on a rock and
"registered" the girls by recording their names and collecting a R2 (US
$0.30) fee from each.
Girls who passed the test later paid an
additional R6.50 ($1) to receive a certificate stating how proud the
Zulu nation was of her virginity.
Scoffing at suggestions that
she had "sold out" by charging for inspections, Ngobese pointed out
that this was her main source of income.
"This is my [only] job.
They [the state] are not paying me, and they don't want to employ me. I
have no choice. Where is all this money I am supposed to be making? I'm
barely making ends meet."
Mrs Luthuli, a pre-primary school
principal and mother who has been bringing her daughters to Ngobese for
years, is a long-time supporter of the tester. She and a few other
parents have embarked on a fund-raising campaign to ensure that
Ngobese's work continues.
THE POLITICS OF TESTING
According
to Dr Jerome Singh, head of the Bioethics and Health Law Programme at
the Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA)
at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, the move to prohibit the
inspections has exposed the ideological clash between culture and human
rights.
"It's a slippery slope ... but nothing can stand up to
the constitution, which is the highest authority in the land - even if
it seems to undermine customary practices," Singh pointed out.
Critics have argued that the practice violates children's rights: their right to privacy, bodily integrity and dignity.
The
Commission on Gender Equality, which has been at the forefront of
advocacy efforts to halt the practice, described the test as
"discriminatory, invasive of privacy, unfair, impinging on the dignity
of young girls and unconstitutional".
Ngobese angrily referred
to these arguments as "the distortion of information", remarking that
by focusing on these individual rights, people had forgotten that "we
don't live alone, we live communally here".
"Protecting children? They are creating laws that are destroying families," Ngobese charged.
An
emotional Luthuli agreed: "We parents have been marginalised: I am not
renting children owned by the government. If my ancestors tell me to do
this, I can't argue with them."
The debate has become
politicised. With the ongoing controversy over axed former
deputy-president Jacob Zuma, who faces charges of corruption, Ngobese
alluded to an elaborate conspiracy to undermine Zulu culture.
While
in office, Zuma was reported as having encouraged girls to take the
test as a way of curbing the spread of HIV/AIDS and reducing the
prevalence of teenage pregnancy.
Ngobese and other testers and
traditionalists will be marching in the port city of Durban, KZN, on 17
September to demand that the government review its stance on virginity
testing.
In downtown Durban, Cati Vawda, director of the
Children Rights Centre, an NGO, pointed out that it would be difficult
to implement the legislation, as virginity testing was seen by many as
part of the revival of indigenous knowledge systems suppressed during
the apartheid era.
But Simangele Ngcobo, Vawda's colleague, was
wary of romanticising the practice. According to her, not enough
attention was being paid to the burden put on the children undergoing
virginity testing, and the emotional consequences for those who failed
the examination.
"What about the boys? Nobody inspects them," she pointed out.
Singh
noted that, as recent surveys indicated, pressure emanating from
virginity testing was resulting in young girls engaging in anal sex in
order to keep their status as virgins intact - contributing a greater
risk of spreading HIV/AIDS.
IMPACT ON HIV/AIDS PREVENTION
Dr
Fiona Scorgie, senior research fellow at the Centre for HIV/AIDS
Networking at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, spent time between 2000
and 2001 with some of the first virginity testers.
She said the debate over human rights versus cultural rights had reached a deadlock.
"We
can sit arguing till the cows come home, but the more urgent and
pragmatic issue is HIV/AIDS. If we look at it just from that
[perspective], then virginity testing is not effective - it has failed
on so many levels [to reduce HIV/AIDS prevention]," she told PlusNews.
By
placing sexual responsibility on the girls, virginity testing had
ignored the gender dynamics contributing to the pandemic and had become
part of the problem: testing failed to address male sexuality,
responsibility, and the high levels of gender violence in the country.
In
the park, Ngobese also lectured the girls on AIDS. "If you are getting
married, 11 cows of 'lobola' [the bride price] are useless if you are
going to end up with AIDS - that's why VCT [HIV voluntary testing and
counselling] is important."
Condoms were mentioned only once
during her discussion. "Don't use condoms, simply abstain, abstain,
abstain," she told her audience of fidgety young girls.
"I spend peaceful nights knowing that my children have been educated by Nomagugu. They are protected," Luthuli commented.
While
admitting that it would be good if more young people chose to delay
their sexual debut, Scorgie warned that, at some point, young women
would become sexually active, requiring skills to negotiate condom use.
However, despite her reservations, Scorgie believed an outright ban was not a "helpful long-term solution".
READY AND WILLING
But,
while people sit in their offices debating the issue, Zintle Dlamini
and the rest of the girls in Alexander Park are willing and vocal
participants.
Dlamini, Nokuthula Shezi and Rachel (last name withheld), for example, have become the Nomkhubulwane group's public faces.
Smart,
articulate city girls, looking forward to university in 2006 and 2007,
the girls are not the typical "submissive Zulu virgins" often portrayed
in the media, and Ngobese encouraged them to air their views.
"I
hate the way people assume things about [the people being tested]. I go
to a Model C [multiracial] school, speak English, and I like fun and
have a boyfriend, but I can still respect my culture," Dlamini
commented.
Nevertheless, she admitted that most of her peers
were reluctant to come. "They think it's not for them. I'm always
telling them to come - I guess they're too modernised for this."
The
three are also on a committee handling the logistics of transporting
certified virgins from the Nomkhubulwane group to the reed dance in
Nongoma. Shezi will be writing her exams three days before the
ceremony, "but there's no way I can miss it - it's like a huge
get-together."
"If the banning happens, I don't think this will
stop - maybe Auntie will just start coming to our homes, instead of
doing it here," she added.
But Ngcobo at the Children Rights
Centre is sceptical about the willingness of girls to undergo virginity
testing: "They think they want to go, it's the latest fashion now."
When
it was her turn to be examined by "Auntie", Dlamini - wearing a black
tracksuit and a bright pink bandana - nonchalantly walked into the
testing circle, removing her pants and stuffed her underwear into her
pockets.
Although she is proud of her status, Dlamini is not
fazed by the thought of losing her virginity. "It won't be the end of
the world - it's going to happen someday." |
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