Boys to men

In a small village in Kenya’s Laikipia County, the elders of the Samburu people have incorporated medical male circumcision into the traditional initiation ceremony for boys, The Standard reports. In the article, one of the elders explains that they decided to have a professional clinical officer from the community perform male circumcisions to improve the safety of the procedure. He is quoted as saying that in the past, traditional healers used one knife to circumcise all the initiates, exposing them to diseases, “and that is why we chose to use one of our own who is a professional.” This medical service is incorporated into the traditional ceremony rather than replacing it, according to the clinical officer (The Standard, 13 November 2019).