Question

1. Name three (3) cultural practices that are health-promoting. Name three (3) cultural practices that are harmful to health. Explain. (500 words)

Answer 1

Ans) Persistent traditions and cultural practices
These include initiation, birth and death rites; arranged marriages, female genital mutilation, circumcision and various iterations of cleansing rituals associated with the body and mind.

- In addition, these rituals are often transactional. Where there are high levels of poverty these children become a “resource”. They are transacted for money, food or other material goods. The main benefactors are adult males who seek to enhance their status or to get another wife. These men also look for labour or consider such girls a medical solution – some maladies are believed to need a young virgin “girl” for cleansing.

- It has been shown that addressing the HIV epidemic in southern Africa is hampered by practices which place young people, particularly young women and girls, at risk of infection.

- The question is why some of these cultural practices persist in the face of so much effort and interventions to highlight their negative impacts on individuals and communities. For example, three decades of HIV/AIDS and broader public health research has shown the link between unsafe ritual practices and human health and development.