Powell Araka is from a Bantu tribe called Kisii who live some 300 kilometres west of Nairobi, Kenya’s Capital City, around 80 kilometres south east of Lake Victoria, Africa’s largest Lake. The Kisii tribespeople, like most tribes that practice, keep their culture intact and sometimes in secret—changing rules only when they want to. Kisii boys are initiated into adulthood through circumcision at age 10.

Before circumcision, the boys are still children, and there is no respect for the uncircumcised. The initiation ritual, which takes place towards the end of the year, marks the boys' entry into adult life. The kids don’t refuse once their parents decide that they must undergo the rite of passage.

Thousands of boys are circumcised, and circumcisers do booming business, circumcising up to one hundred kids per session, and charging between 10 and 20 U.S. dollars a kid. There are mobile circumcisers who charge even less than 10 dollars. Fortunately, the Kisii people don’t practice traditional circumcision where circumcisers use one knife for any number of boys. Nowadays, hospital support staff, who use hospital operation materials, are the ones in this business.

"What I experienced during my circumcision last year is far more than a cut of the flesh— removal of the foreskin. It was a ritual preceded by three weeks of education and training on a whole variety of societal rules," reveals 10-year-old Araka. "I suffered a lot of aggression. As soon as schools closed last November, I had to basically do a lot of preparation for my ceremony. I had to look for firewood from the forest and fetch enough water for cooking during the ceremony," Araka laments, noting that it was to prove his sense of responsibility.

On the eve of circumcision day, friends and members of his family gathered at his home for the night ceremony. "For me, there was nothing to celebrate. I was isolated in a small hut full of men and boys older than me. This is where the ritual hazing took place to prove my manhood," remembers Araka, adding that for close to five hours, he was being taught to be masculine and stronger to face physical challenges.

This kind of training and education was being reinforced by a lot of torture and seclusion-done with a lot of dramatic, physical, and psychological impact, without challenging anything. The trainers carried out a mock circumcision operation on him forcing him to remove all his clothes. One of them got hold of the foreskin of his penis and tried to 'cut' it using a blunt sword. He suffered a little bruising.

They then dug a small hole on the floor of the house and forced him to demonstrate to them how his parents made love. "I did not know what to do, and this annoyed them, and they beat me thoroughly. They forced me to name all of my girlfriends, and when I refused to, they poured very cold water on me and forced me to lie down on the cold muddy floor for one hour as they abused and called me names," Araka remembers, as if it happened last night.

They even laughed at his body structure, the size of his manhood, and even forced him into erection! He felt as if he was in a very difficult and unfriendly situation, as that was a very vigorous stage of hazing. He narrates that, "I was not supposed to show fear or pain but brave the sexual stimulation and humiliation. To show fear or pain is to humiliate myself forever in the community. During the ordeal, I could hear my parents and other merrymakers in the compound sing, ululate, and dance."

At midnight, he was permitted to sleep. He staggered to bed and fell into the deepest sleep ever, only to be forced out of bed at four in the morning. Cold water was poured on him (still naked), and young boys led him to the circumciser in his home. The 10-year-old boy walked for kilometres to the site where he was forced to lie face down on tall, dewy grass while queuing for the operation. Him and some 20 other boys were restrained from raising their heads to see what was going on.

"I saw nothing for one hour until I was led and laid on the circumciser’s table. My eyes were blocked from seeing how the foreskin was cut," narrates Araka with sadness on his face. Fortunately, his operation was not done with quick strokes of a sharp knife. It was done with surgical scissors, and bleeding vessels were tied with a gauze bandage after application of antiseptic powder.

After the cut, he was hidden away from the joyous crowd while walking home into his seclusion hut to recover from the ordeal. In his hut, his parents, aunts, and uncles were forbidden to see him. Food and drinks were brought to him by his attendant who was only two years older than him. It is during this time that older boys taught him practical values like, "Men don’t cry like women," and "Men must be brave, aggressive, and demanding towards women." (Ever wondered why husbands beat their wives?)

To check whether he had healed, young, beautiful girls were brought into the hut and played with his manhood into erection. His attendant checked for any cracks or bleeding and qualified to end his seclusion if he saw no issues. Early in the morning of the following day, Araka was presented to the whole family and other guests as an adult man. He received gifts and messages of congratulations.

Now, one wonders why circumcision is the only way of eloquently learning to be a man. Lawyer Natalia Mongina, who hails from the same tribe as Araka asks, "Is the cut of the foreskin any necessary? If it is, why are the boys not consulted in decision-making involving the removal of parts of their bodies?"

She wonders why everybody is against female genital mutilation and not male genital mutilation and its related rituals. Above all, principles of mental and physical health together with the integrity of human bodies and privacy are fundamental in the human rights charter. In conclusion, circumcision is an abuse of human rights when undertaken on children who can’t make their own choices.

Powell Araka is not the boy's real name because he is below the legal age of 18.