MALE CIRCUMCISION CAMPAIGNS IN AFRICA TO FIGHT HIV ARE 'NEOCOLOIANIALIST' AND NOT BASED ON ROBUST SCIENCE.
Introduction
This featured article explores the impact that US backed big-pharma is having in Africa, and the dangerous and devastating impact that Neocolonialism has had on African nations. Western influence has often dominated, controlled and shaped the developing nations of the world, and this is blatantly clear in the case of circumcision. For a full account, you can read the following article:
MALE CIRCUMCISION CAMPAIGNS IN AFRICA ARE NEOCOLONIALIST, AND NOT BASED ON ROBUST SCIENCE.
In the USA, it is still considered “normal” to circumcise male children and intersex children, but FGM is considered abhorrent. The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends the mass circumcision of African men and boys, under the guise of linking a circumcised penis to a lower HIV transmission risk. However, their goal is suspicious. It can be argued that this is yet another invasion and covert inroad for US corporate interests to gain access into the developing world, with the brazen assumption that they can carbon copy their culture, despite some glaring oversights.
It is an established fact that community-based circumcision practitioners endanger patients. This makes the World Health Organisation (WHO), Gates Foundation & the “Voluntary” Medical Male Circumcision organisations all the more unforgivable after endorsing a roll out of circumcision programmes in what seems to be an attempt to dominate African healthcare.
“After he was circumcised the sexual organ was almost rotting. I checked on him, the wound almost spread to the lower abdomen.”
“My brother’s child bled to death after circumcision.”
– Family members of African boys targeted by the US sponsored Voluntary Male Medical Circumcision programme.
What is the VMMC?
Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision – “This massive public health intervention called for 80% coverage of male circumcision by 2016 in the original 14 priority countries (aiming to reach 20.8 million people)”
We have comprehensive criticisms of this “HIV prevention” idea, however this deserves an article of it’s own. The studies are riddled with oversights, and most of the criticisms have not been met with a response. This is thanks to people putting blind faith in institutions that endorse the practice, such as health monopolists at PEPFAR and The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The sheer volume of institutions that have major conflicts of interests due to Gates funding should be public knowledge by now. The WHO is one of them as the two biggest donors to the WHO are the Gates Foundation and the US Government.
“Since 2007, the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNAIDS have recommended voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) as a key component of combination HIV prevention in countries with a high HIV prevalence and low levels of male circumcision.”
– AVERT, UK based HIV Charity
Health intervention is an appropriate use of words. Many communities feel this brazen approach to monopolize and interfere with their autonomy is a grave insult. Africa is not a playground for US ‘health’ policy. Consent of men, education of communities and improved research without the touting of bent studies is essential. Many men have had the procedure forced on them, misinformation given that has increased the rates of HIV in some communities.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) are recommending the mass circumcision of African men and boys, under the guise of linking a circumcised penis to a lower HIV transmission rate. However, the goal is suspicious. It can be argued that this is yet another invasion and covert inroad for US big-pharma to gain access into the developing world. Adding credence to this speculation is how sketchy the science has been for circumcision to be used as an HIV prophylactic. The reluctance to investigate criticism, and the fervor that circumcision for Africa has been embraced with by health oligarchs is a genuine concern.
The gross lack of consent on behalf of African communities, and weak to non-existent oversight in implementing these programmes has left an absolute rats nest of failures and damage to men all across Africa.
How unethical groups minted millions from anti-HIV male cut.
– “…recruiting underage children, bribing them, engaging unqualified circumcisers and even inadequate stitching of the boys.”
Botched circumcisions in Africa.
– “These boys have suffered injuries that may cause permanent disfigurement, functional impairments, and lifelong psychological impact… Most of these have been blamed on ambitious money-based targets set by the doctor. The more cuts local implementers make, the more money they get.”
– Report by the Ministry of Health and several US State agencies…
VMMC Experience Project
“Today, the rhetoric around male circumcision has become a disturbing exploitation. Contrary to what Africans are being told, circumcision has no value in protecting against any disease. It’s purely a lie that circumcision has any role in prevention of HIV. It’s a mother of pains, torture, death, and suffering for children and infants, a terrorist act, business of blood through children.”
(Prince Hillary Maloba, Director of The VMMC Experience Project)
Here are some voices from the families and victims of the VMMC propaganda in Africa –
- “We respect science honestly. But we do not support what science brings to defile our cultures, defile our rights.”
- “The people from the west… I think they wanted to misuse the Africans because of misunderstandings because people are not informed.”
- “They are using other methods to make sure that we are using their tools, to have a place where they can exercise their power.”
- “This programme circumcises your kids while you’re away, when you come home you find out they have already been circumcised. Many parents are arguing angrily and they were devastated the day of the circumcision.”
A recent exposé of the project has made it glaringly clear that this is a gross example of neocolonialism. A lack of ethics, implementation strategy, sound science and true informed consent has created a healthcare situation that would not stand anywhere else in the developed world. It is unacceptable that Africans can possibly be seen as expendable and therefore not afforded the same level of respect that Westerners would be.
Ethicists, legal, and medical experts from the UK, USA, Cameroon, Zimbabwe and South Africa have been conducting an appraisal on the situation for circumcision in Africa. You can find more information about the research and the full academic paper here:
Even when we are discussing HIV consent still matters!
There is documented evidence of death from complications such as bleeding out, infections and psychological scarring to go along with their altered genitals, all for what?
In the case of the WHO they offer up circumcision to be the miracle prevention of HIV.
“The use of mass circumcision to curb HIV in Africa is ill-advised, and may worsen the crisis while expending scarce resources that could be applied better for more effective preventive measures. Neonatal non-therapeutic circumcision to combat the HIV crisis in Africa is neither medically nor ethically justifiable on the basis of current medical evidence or universally recognised ethical and human rights principles.” (Sidler et el 2008)
WHO HIV Prevention Campaigns
The advertising that is being used to persuade men to undergo the cut is littered with poor information, sweeping claims of female preference for circumcised men, some of these programs are being used to trial circumcision devices, under the premise of doing it for the health of the nation.
Click here to see a sample of the adverts being targeted to manipulate the public
- Advertisement of the HIV circumcision campaign in Uganda. Photo accredited to http://www.jhuccp.org
“Thousands of African men now line up to get circumcised in the mistaken belief that it will save them from HIV” (Green et el 2002, p193 )
AFRICA IS NOT A PLAYGROUND FOR USA ‘HEALTH’ POLICY.
Consent of men, education of communities and improved research without the touting of bent studies is essential. Many men have had the procedure forced on them, misinformation given that has increased the rates of HIV in some communities.
WHO offers up circumcision to be the miracle prevention of HIV.
Kennedy Owino, the Director of Intact Kenya (an organisation against circumcision) has shared the following observation from his work in Kenya:
“Vulnerable Africans have been brainwashed by the whitewashed circumcision information they receive from the VMMC campaign team. Women with intact partners have been exposed to the cervical cancer charade in order to convince their partners to surrender themselves for circumcision. Young men and women have been given circumcision information smothered with hygiene benefits. And with regard to teenage boys, the coercion has been wrapped up in enticements of free soft drinks, biscuits, loaves of bread and clothing.”
(Kennedy Owino, Director of Intact Kenya)
Does that sound like INFORMED consent?
Tricking African men and their families into receiving circumcision is the highest breach of ethics. People should not be subjected to genital cutting procedures without informed consent, anaesthetics, clinically clean environments, and a registered medical practitioner that can be held accountable.
“Male circumcision as a project has been applied to we Africans, it has failed to reduce HIV in the way we were told. We view it as a violation of human rights. They target only one race in the entire world.”
This debate is NOT over, and it has never been given the fair chance to begin.
A scientific approach demands that we embrace scepticism by responding and adapting to criticism. These campaigns have meant a high number of men being circumcised based on this bad science, this behaviour is abhorrent, male circumcision is touted as a cure-all.
Infamous doctor and religious zealout Dr John Harvey Kellogg introduced circumcision into mainstream American society as an anti-masturbation tactic to soothe puritanical morals (Denniston et al 2008 p6)
“More than 25 million men and boys have already been circumcised as a result of voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) campaigns in eastern and southern Africa, implemented by the United States government and Western non-governmental organisations (NGOs).” – BSMS Press Release
“The critical appraisal examined the history and politics of these circumcision campaigns in the context of race and colonialism and found that they had been started in haste and without sufficient contextual research. The paper concluded that the campaigns have been carried out in a manner that implies troubling assumptions about culture, health and sexuality in Africa. Africans were under-represented in the decision-making process, and needed a greater voice in the planning of such an intimate health intervention.” – (BSMS Press Release)
Surely it is time that these practices were halted?
This obtuse attitude to dominating world healthcare has gone without the scrutiny that it deserves. Disregarding autonomy, suppressing opposition, and conspiring to monopolise world healthcare by using a seriously contentious excuse for “science” is a neocolonial pattern of behaviour that never ends well for the communities that fall victim to these tactics.
Since writing this article, PEPFAR has announced that it will cut funding and no longer provide circumcision incentives for boys aged 10-15.
Let’s hope that this is a slow step in recognising these human rights abuses. 15 Square will continue to endorse better health information and the recognition of harm caused by circumcision. Please consider supporting us if you feel the same.
References and further reading.
Prince Hillary Maloba, Director of The VMMC Experience Project
Kennedy Owino, Director of Intact Kenya
Onwauchi, P. (1972). African Peoples and Western Education.
WHO (2014) ‘WHO Progress Brief – Voluntary medical male circumcision for HIV prevention in priority countries of East and Southern Africa’ (accessed September 2020)
The Journal of Negro Education, 41(3), 241-247. doi:10.2307/2966999, Racine, L. (2003), Implementing a postcolonial feminist perspective in nursing research related to non‐Western populations.
Nursing Inquiry, 10: 91-102. doi:10.1046/j.1440-1800.2003.00169.x, Male circumcision is not the HIV ‘vaccine’ we have been waiting for!
Lawrence W Green, Ryan G McAllister, Kent W Peterson, and John W Travis, Future HIV Therapy 2008 2:3, 193-199
Sidler, D, Smith, J, & Rode, H. (2008). Neonatal circumcision does not reduce HIV/AIDS infection rates.
SAMJ: South African Medical Journal, 98(10), 762-766. Circumcision and Human Rights. Accessed September 2020,
George Denniston, Frederick Hodges, Marilyn Fayre Milos (2008), Springer Science & Business Media
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