A South African rite of passage: tradition or abuse?

Just 18 and dwarfed by the oversized green work suit he wears over clothes to protect against South Africa's biting Southern Hemisphere winter, Sthembiso Ngobeni has not been a man for long.

But today he is one of five teachers at an initiation school not far from the one Ponkie attended. The camp is little more than a clearing in the hills, with a tent, a fire circle, and a teepee-like structure made from greenery. Students are naked except for a blanket. Behind the tent is a large pile of clothes.

Mr. Ngobeni says the teachers at his school never beat the children, they use different knives for each circumcision, and since the deaths at Ponkie's camp, they allow doctors to examine the boys every day.

He and other teachers blame the deaths on fly-by-night schools run by con men out to make a quick buck, rather than trained traditional healers.

"I think those people don't use the traditions, they just want money, not to make boys men," he says. "We are not allowed to hit the students, and they all sleep in the tent."

Since the rituals of the schools are so secretive, it is difficult to determine the veracity of Ngobeni's claim. However, the healer who ran Ponkie's school had done so for 10 years, and health officials say there are students even in Ngobeni's school who were suffering from infections and exposure, though not so badly that they were forcibly removed by authorities.

Local police say that while the degree of physical abuse that lead to deaths at Ponkie's school is rare, physical punishment is a common feature of the schools. Students are often beaten for mistakes made in lessons, denied food and water, or forced to sleep outside in the severe cold.

Although any kind of physical punishment is illegal under South Africa's strict child-abuse laws, prosecuting school authorities, even in cases that lead to death, is almost impossible. A 1998 case in Heidelberg over the beating death of one student never went to trial because witnesses disappeared or refused to testify.

The death of the four boys in Heidelberg has led to renewed calls for some sort of government intervention in the schools. The South African Department of Health says that they are trying to encourage traditional healers to bring initiates to hospitals and health centers for circumcisions. Some provincial and local authorities are also beginning to register schools in order to hold them more accountable, although no national registration plan has been enacted.

Ponkie, who is still recovering at the Heidelberg Hospital, didn't finish the five weeks of initiation. Speaking in slow, halting sentences, his hands over his face, he says he won't go back to finish the initiation. The night his friends died, he saw a man's share of tragedy.

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