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| Ishmael and wife, Enala. |
THE foreskin carries magical powers that could attract wealth. This myth is so strong for some people in the Eastern part of the country.
“Young men are amassing too much wealth. The have deals with clinic staff for our foreskins which they later take to Mozambique in exchange for the cars they drive.”
These are the words of Ishmael Sibanda, a well-founded and cultured Ngoni in Zambia who has vowed that none of his body parts, including the vestigial foreskin, will allegedly be used for rituals and sacrifices in the neighbouring country.
He further supports this premise.
“I am a farmer who struggles even to buy a bicycle, yet young men here are buying vehicles easily. Such happenings have made us believe that the wealth amassed is connected to our foreskins,” Mr Sibanda said.
In this eastern part of Zambia, myths abound on the alleged use of foreskins after circumcision, hence the 51-year-old Sibanda stands firm that he will not lose his foreskin.
“I have heard that VMMC has over 60 percent chances of reducing a man’s risk of acquiring HIV from a female partner,” said Mr Sibanda who lives in Mwami Border trading area.
However, the talk on the missing foreskin is so strong amongst my peers that we believe it,” Mr Sibanda said in an interview.
He also has economic concerns before he considers the medical procedure.
“The operation takes six weeks to heal, and as a farmer, that’s a long time,” Mr Sibanda said.
When these cultural and financial concerns are addressed, he might consider voluntary medical male circumcision.
On the other hand, his wife Enala Phiri supports VMMC for its health reasons and the bonus that it improves sex life.
“At the antenatal and postnatal clinics, we learn the benefits of VMMC like reducing the risk of cervical cancer and HIV infections; premature ejaculation, it greatly improves stamina and circumcised men are always cleaner. The advantages are plenty,” she said.
But the head of her family is inconvincible and she says; “I have tried my best but to no avail. Even taking our two boys (for circumcision) aged two and four is tough,” she said.
According to Eastern Province VMMC provincial coordinator Royd Kamboyi, only 617 males have been circumcised in Chief Mpezeni’s area out of a population of 31,303 males, as per 2016 population estimates from the Central Statistical Office (CSO).
The missing foreskin, he alludes, is a prickly issue.
“Chief Mpezeni’s area is on the border with Malawi, and the HIV prevalence is high, but residents refuse to under-go VMMC,” he said.
The older men are harder to convince due to their cultural affiliations, he observed, a fact supported by Chief Mpezeni’s senior advisor Joshua Jere, who says male circumcision is a new practice in the area.
Perhaps there could be hope of ending the mythical-based fears if healthcare providers given-in to Mr Jere’s daring proposition.
“Most people here want to have their foreskin given to them after the operation. Let us allow them to make a choice as to whether to carry the foreskin with them, or to have it disposed of at the clinic,” he suggests.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), VMMC reduces the risk of female-to-male sexual transmission of HIV by approximately 60 percent, presenting an unprecedented opportunity in the next decade and a half to prevent an estimated 3.5 million new HIV infections in southern and eastern African countries with high HIV prevalence and low male circumcision prevalence.
Zambia is one of the 14 WHO priority countries identified to expand male circumcision as an excellent model to both save costs by averting new HIV infections and reducing the number of people needing HIV treatment and care.
Mathematical modeling carried out separately by Njeuhmeli E and Hankins C published in PLoS Medical journal suggested that circumcising 80 percent of the male population aged 15–49 in these countries by 2015, and sustaining this coverage level thereafter, could avert 430,000 new HIV infections by 2015 and 3.36 million HIV infections by 2025.
This is based on the scientific premise that with an HIV prevalence rate of 14 percent and while access to HIV treatment has increased significantly in Zambia and the southern region as a whole over the past five years, the number of new infections continues to outpace the expansion of treatment.
Health experts believe that scaling up VMMC is critically important to reduce the future burden of HIV in Eastern and Southern Africa.
And because cultural practices are so inclined in Ngonis, the key to increasing the uptake of VMMC lies in addressing social-cultural issues such as those raised by the Ngonis through Mr Sibanda.
“I think it will help going by the way people want. Most people here prefer that the foreskin is given to them after the operation,” Mr Jere concludes. PUBLISHED IN THE ZAMBIA DAILY MAIL ON MAY 14, 2016. HERE IS THE LINK: https://www.daily-mail.co.zm/?p=66395
