HIV/AIDS is currently one of the greatest impediments to Africa’s development. “Of more than 40 million people estimated to be HIV-infected worldwide, 95 percent live in middle- or low-income countries.” (Biehl & Eskerod, 2007:4) Society is exposed to the risk of contracting the disease either due to ignorance or because of risky cultural practices. The situation is aggravated by the fact that it is extremely difficult to fight the spreading of this disease for “no one knows where to start with AIDs.” (Monette, 1988: 2) In this paper, therefore, I will concentrate on two culturally rich nations, one in India and the other in Africa: Sri Lanka and Kenya.
A crucial issue to examine with regard to HIV transmission is male circumcision. While modernization, with its negative implications such as mushrooming of prostitution, has been significantly responsible for facilitating the spread of HIV, modern techniques of education and community mobilization have been active in fighting the spread of HIV through condoms and other preventative measures. However, despite such milestones in understanding the infection, the battle is far from being over. Lorber and Moore suppose that circumcision is one of the main reasons for HIV spreading in Africa.
For the past decade, there have been reports in epidemiological and medical journals about the possible link between circumcision and HIV transmission. When the AIDs epidemic burgeoned in Africa, researchers noted that there was a lower incidence in areas where male ritual genital surgeries were common than where men were not circumcised. (Lorber and Moore 2002: 97)
Across the Indian Ocean to India, for instance, a similar situation prevails. HIV is spread because of the circumcision which is obligatory due to religious convictions. Religion as the basis of social culture in India has been a facilitator of the spread of the AIDS pandemic. In India, religion and culture have been identified as impediments to the fight and prevention of HIV-AIDS (Pisani 2008:83). Nevertheless, it is to be noted that religion and culture do not necessarily oppose prevention measures, but that some beliefs and practices found in these societies can facilitate HIV transmission.
Male circumcision, as a cultural practice among some traditional societies in Kenya, has contributed to HIV transmission of HIV, while the lack of circumcision in Sri Lanka has also led to high prevalence. In this paper, therefore, I set to prove that circumcision is an impediment in the fight against HIV and related infections.
The World Health Organization has estimated that 34% of men 15 and above worldwide were circumcised as of 2006 (CITATION). This translates to 665 million males. The larger uncircumcised percentage is largely due to religion, culture, and lifestyle. Religion as the main basis of culture has resulted in the entrenchment of the ban on circumcision to the culture itself. In the case of Kenya, we have seen that the Luos in Nyanza do not recognize circumcision as a rite of passage into adulthood, but just an unnecessary interference with human genitalia (Juma, 2005, p. 21). Pizer and Meyer (2008, p.136) say that 0.3 million HIV-related deaths and 2 million new infections over ten years can be averted through circumcision assuming an efficacy of 60% as has been observed in studies. According to the BBC, trials in Kenya found a 53% reduction in new HIV infections in heterosexual men who were circumcised while the Ugandan study reported a drop of 48%. Results last year from a study in 3,280 heterosexual men in South Africa, which was also stopped early, showed a 60% drop in the incidence of new infections in men who had been circumcised.
Circumcision is simply the surgical removal of the foreskin or the prepuce on the penis covering the glans. Conventional circumcision was done with the purpose of affecting hygiene and rite of passage into adulthood in Kenya and more so among the famous Maasai Tribe (Juma 2005:9). Circumcision in Sri Lanka is done purely for religious reasons. Some research has shown that the practice lowers the risk of contraction and transmission of the disease from another infected person during sexual contact. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2008), there are four main reasons why the uncircumcised foreskin increases the risk of HIV transmission. These factors include:
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