Children in adults’ rites

When the first HIV infection was discovered nearly 30 years ago, chinamwali was sacred—too good for seven-year-olds. Yao adolescents used to be withdrawn from school to undergo the initiation rite. Its shrine was in the bush. To return home, initiates had to demonstrate their sexual maturity to suitors. According to Village Head Hussein, marriage, chieftaincy and religious leadership were a preserve for those initiated.

“To be called adults,” says Village Head Hussein, pausing for effect, “boys had to go through jando [circumcision] and girl through msondo for what is expected of them both in public and bedroom.”

So pivotal was the rite of passage among the Yao that the likes of Hussein have undergone a series of rites from ndakula marking girls’ entry into puberty to chinamwali cha chidzukulu aimed at coaching mothers into responsible grandmothers. In between, she says coyly, every woman is expected to undergo msondo where they are taught everything about themselves and sex in marriage. Those who get pregnant out of wedlock end up passing through the notorious litiwo, called chimbwinda among Chewas.

However, even primary pupils question chinamwali due to risky tendencies such as chiputu in which elderly counsellors, called nankungwis, conceal girls in the bush, force blistering eggs into their private parts and subject them to unprotected sex with elderly men whose HIV status remains a mystery—all to ensure they were ready for marriage.

Fortunately, even the elderly nankungwis behind the practice, long blamed for exposing boys and girls to HIV infections, are able to take responsibility for the shortcomings while leaving the door open for more intervention to make the practice safer.

Having helped thousands of girls shed the naivety of childhood for the decades of HIV and Aids, nankungwi Patuma Ndala cast doubt on popular claims that chiputu is finally dead and buried. She said “the riskiest chinamwali” happens here and there because even traditional leaders, who sanction all initiation ceremonies, agree that it fuels the pandemic. Some of them have adopted by-laws which spell out fines for those who perpetrate the harmful practices.

“I wouldn’t pretend that it doesn’t happen. Apart from HIV and Aids awareness and pressure from chiefs, it is dying because parents are presenting girls as young as seven for initiation nowadays,” says Ndala, aged about 60.

She feels the influx of seven-year-olds is watering down msondo, which envisages grooming girls for conjugal obligations, among other things. But for Group Village Head Chibwana Liwonde, the young ones could be personifications of an endorsement, for it appears even townspeople are clamouring for children to be brought up in the ways of their tribe as the wind of globalisation exposes them to risky sexual behaviours as portrayed by the popular media, television, radio programming, magazines and Internet content.

But the children are more the reason government, religious leaders and non-governmental organisations need to work hand in hand with communities to transform initiation ceremonies from fertile seedbeds of HIV infections to clean vessels of cultural values, says Qadria Muslim Association of Malawi (Qmam) development programme manager Ousmane Chunga. Since 2010, Qmam, with funding from National Aids Commission (NAC), has been training traditional leaders, counsellors and the clergy in how to amend cultural practices in times of HIV and Aids.

He explained: “Renouncing a cultural practice is like bathing a baby and throwing it away with the dirty water. There is need to empower locals to openly discuss the merits and demerits of their cultural practices so that they can arrive at how best they can modify such practices in view of prevailing realities, including the necessity to reduce HIV infections.”

Paying homage to the effectiveness of community empowerment and dialogue in modernising cultures, Chunga credited Creative Centre for Community Mobilisation (Creccom) with harnessing community-led approaches to convert gule wamkulu into a vital tool for ensuring every child in Mponela, Dowa, goes to school. This is a spectacular turnaround in view of concerns about high absenteeism and dropout rates as pupils clamoured for initiation into the Chewa supreme cult and mask dance.

For over a decade, Creccom has also been instrumental in training Patuma Allan of Chibwana Liwonde Village and other nankungwis in Machinga on how to use initiation practices to save girls from HIV and quitting school.

In an interview, the resident of Chibwana Liwonde said there is need for more actors to emulate Creccom in empowering nankungwis with skills to link what has always been considered as a risky practice to broader HIV and Aids campaigns.

“Unlike in the past, our messages are based on correct and up-to-date information about HIV and how it is transmitted, dispelling misconceptions surrounding the pandemic, its impact and how to avoid harmful sexual behaviour,” explained Allan.

And the success stories are unfolding: During end-of-year school breaks, travellers in Machinga, Mangochi, Zomba and Balaka bumps into numerous initiation processions—an improvement from the days the rite used to disrupt and coincide with school terms; chiputu is disappearing; cultural leaders are increasingly speaking against it; boys and girls’ sessions no longer coincide to pave the way for sanctioned sexual orgies; some no longer compel the initiate into kuchotsa mafuta, sexual rituals to rub off immaturity; even nankungwis are demanding more information on HIV.

Community elders’ agree that change agents should harness these strides as an entry point to further efforts towards reaching the unreached nankungwis—the likes of elderly Ndala who has not undergone any training since she inherited the initiation role from her parents about 30 years ago. The strides such as trainings conducted by Qmam mark footprints towards the desired change.