A Review of: Sex initiation camps, child marriages and polygamy, the lesser-known side of cervical cancer in Africa

An article by Samantha Spooner

It is no news when we say that more African women suffer from cervical cancer than women in other continents of the world.

The health care systems in operation across the continent have not been able to effectively address  the issues, hence there is still a lot of work to be done. Such as: creating awareness, organizing screening programs to aid early detection of cancer, developing schemes and programs to educate people about cancer among many others.

There are still some social circumstances which hitherto have led to a high rate of cervical cancer and need to be curbed so as to put a decrease the incidence of cervical cancer amongst African women.

According to the article being reviewed:
Sex initiation camps, child marriages and polygamy, the lesser-known side of cervical cancer in Africa, written by Samantha Spooner.

Generally cervical cancer has been a major problem in Africa, being the most common form of cancer in women from eastern and central Africa , Malawi is said to have the highest rate of cervical cancer in the world with about 3,684 cases and about 500 of them surviving, a 1/7 surviving rate.

Aside from poor health schemes against cancer, some often ignored social circumstances/practices can also predispose women to cervical cancer.  These include but are not limited to;
Sex initiation Camp a common practice among Malawi women which involves taking young girls about the age of eight to teach them how to perform sexual activities in order to groom them to be good cooks, run errands and have sex.

According to World Health Organization, one of the common causes of cervical cancer is an early age of first intercourse. An early age of first intercourse is associated with a high risk of human papillomavirus (HPV) infection, an infection that in susceptible women is responsible for almost all cases of invasive cervical cancer. The prevalence of this cancer-causing HPV is 69.7%.

With most African women being unaware of this fact, the risk of developing cervical cancer by contracting HPV is on the increase.

Child marriage is commonplace in a continent like Africa with statistics showing that child marriage could rise to 15 million by 2030, an alarming figure which could mean more cervical cancer cases in African women. Since child marriage also predisposes a child to early age of first intercourse, one is likely to say child marriage is as bad as sex initiation camp too.
Multiple sex partners and polygamy according to an interview with Evan Sequiera, an expert of obstetric and gynecology based in Kenya, he said that “even more than young age, it’s the multiplicity of partners that causes cervical cancer. This is as a result of the increase in the chances of contracting HPV.

On a concluding note, though factors like timely detection of cancer, immunization against it, treatments and access to quality health care remain problems to be solved, it will be wise and productive to pay attention to our cultural practices and social norms in Africa to curb cervical cancer in our women.

Written By: Jimoh Waliu