TRADITIONAL leaders have apologised to a teenager who was forced to undergo circumcision, after he took the matter to court where it was yesterday ruled unconstitutional.

Bhisho High Court Judge Yusuf Ebrahim ruled that circumcision without consent was illegal and that it went against an individual’s constitutional rights.

He made the ruling during the unprecedented court battle between a father and his son. The son claimed to have been forced to undergo traditional circumcision against his religious beliefs.

Bonani Yamani, a second-year microbiology student at the University of the Free State, was forcefully circumcised after being abducted by his father Lindile Yamani and 10 other men at his village, KwaMasele, near King William’s Town on March 3, 2007.

This was three months after he had returned from Frere Hospital, where he had been circumcised in November 2006.

Yamani refused to go with the men, telling them that he had already been circumcised, but the men mocked this circumcision and took him to the bush were they circumcised him again.

Yesterday Ebrahim said forced circumcision was against the Constitution and that it was unfair for anyone to be discriminated against based on their religious beliefs.

Acting pro bono, Yamani’s legal representative John Smyth, QC, of Justice Alliance of SA (Jasa), said Yamani was happy that the court had given him what he wanted.

“We did not expect it but we are happy that we got what we wanted. The judge made it clear that forced circumcision is against the law,” Smyth said.

In their application to the court seeking an apology from the father and the Eastern Cape House of Traditional Leaders, Smyth had argued that his client’s dignity had been undermined.

“(Yamani) has suffered harassment, unfair discrimination on the grounds of religion, conscience and belief and has had his human dignity seriously undermined,” Smyth argued.

Jasa also wanted the court to issue an order forbidding circumcision without full consent.

Following an apology from Eastern Cape Contralesa, Yamani consented to a settlement and withdrew his complaint against it. Eastern Cape Contralesa chairman Nkosi Ngubo Mgcotyelwa apologised to Yamani for the remarks made by his predecessor, Chief Mwelo Nonkonyana, that people like Yamani who refused traditional circumcision should be ostracised.

In a settlement document filed with the court, Mgcotyelwa said Contralesa accepted the right of each adult male to choose whether to attend traditional circumcision school according to his religious beliefs. – Daily Dispatch