On June 6, just as the sun was dipping below the horizon, 17-year-old Ponkie Lebitse stole a blanket from his bed and sneaked away from his home in Orange Farm, a township about 25 miles outside Johannesburg.

Dressed in a black track suit and tennis shoes, he made his way to the local post office, where a small group of his friends waited for the large truck that would transport them to a place where boys become men.

"I wanted to go," says Ponkie, referring to the traditional initiation school where young Sotho men are circumcised and learn the ways of their people. "I wanted to become a man."

But of the 21 boys who left with Ponkie that day, only 15 came home. Four of Ponkie's friends froze to death after being forced to sleep outside naked in below-freezing temperatures after being sprayed with cold water. Another two died from exposure and severe beatings in the following weeks, one of whom had been returned to the school by his family after being hospitalized. In addition, 56 other boys from three separate schools, including Ponkie, were hospitalized.

Each year, around this time, young men in several South African ethnic groups participate in this traditional rite of passage. Much of what happens during the usually five-week-long schools is shrouded in secrecy, but officials say it usually involves learning traditional songs and dances, tribal history, and societal laws.

But often boys die. Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of others are hospitalized from botched circumcisions or injuries caused by the strict corporal punishment used by teachers. Authorities also fear that the schools are spreading AIDS because the same knife is often used to circumcise multiple boys.

For South Africa's eight-year-old black administration, the initiation schools pose a political dilemma. While the country's progressive human- and child-rights laws clearly make the kind of abuse that took place at Ponkie's camp illegal, the government is under pressure to respect people's right to practice their culture.

In Limpopo province in northern South Africa, parents recently protested against a move by health authorities to close nearby schools, saying the government had no right to interfere in their traditional practices.

Like female circumcision, which is practiced further north on the continent and has been condemned by human rights groups as a form of gender discrimination, the debate over the initiation schools pit culture against human rights, an uncomfortable conflict for African governments who claim to uphold both.

"There are some people to whom this makes no sense, but there are others who hold this tradition dear," says Modise Nyawane, town manager of Heidelberg, where three camps were closed by health officials. "Our country is a democratic country that gives people latitude to practice their beliefs, but we've got to find a way to do that that also protects the health and safety of these boys."

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