Philippine city holds 'circumcision party'
May 7, 2011
AP
http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/SEAsia/Story/STIStory_665931.html
Reynaldo Reyes, 12, holds his shorts as he walks past a group of boys waiting for their turn during an 'Operation Circumcision' at a basketball court in Paranque city, metro Manila. -- PHOTO: REUTERS
MANILA (Philippines) - HUNDREDS of boys in a Philippine
city turned out on Saturday for a day-long 'circumcision party' to
provide a safe, free procedure for a rite of passage that most local
males undergo as preteens.
Some boys cried in their mothers' arms while others bit their shirts to stifle sobs as doctors carried out the surgery on dozens of makeshift operating tables inside a sports stadium in Marikina city
east of Manila. Outside, other boys lined up to await their turn.
'I'm a big boy now,' one boy who had just finished the surgery bragged. Officials said the event - touted in a press statement
as a 'circumcision party' - aims to promote safe circumcision and to
offer to poor residents free surgery that would otherwise cost at least $40 (S$50) in private hospitals.
As of mid-afternoon, nearly 1,500 boys aged 9 years and up had been circumcised while many were still waiting in line, city health
officer Dr Alberto Herrera said. In the Philippines, pre-adolescent and adolescent boys traditionally are circumcised during summer school break from March to May. In rural areas, the surgery is sometimes performed by non-doctors using crude methods.
The city also hopes to establish a world record for the number of people attending a mass circumcision.
'We applied for the Guinness Book of World Records and we are recording everything so we can send all the data to them and hopefully it will be recognised,' Vice-Mayor Jose Fabian Cadiz said.
Marikina, the country's shoemaking capital, was recognised by Guinness in 2002 for creating what was then the world's biggest pair of shoes.
*********************************************************************
WORLD VIEW NEWS SERVICE
To subscribe to this group, send an email to:
wvns-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
To leave this list, send an email to:
wvns-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
NEWS ARCHIVE IS OPEN TO PUBLIC VIEW
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/wvns/
Please consider contributing to WVNS today.
Email ummyakoub@yahoo.com !
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
No comments:
Post a Comment