Madagascar – Taboo on Twins as Misfortune – Solution Search
Author: Womens UN Report Network
Date: April 30, 2012
WUNRN
Madagascar, off the southeastern coast
of Africa, is
considered the fourth largest island in the world.
MADAGASCAR – TABOO ON TWINS AS
MISFORTUNE – SOLUTION SEARCH
A set of twins living in the Madagascan coastal town of Mananjary. The mother asked that they not be named. Photo: UNICEF/Pierrot
Men
MANANJARY, 3 November 2011 (IRIN) – A centuries
old practice of putting newborn twins up for adoption is dividing residents in
the Madagascan coastal town of Mananjary as surely as the siblings are
separated from their parents. It is said that twins bring bad luck and violence
to parents and the community.
The belief that twins should not remain with their biological parents is
perpetuated by descendants of the Mpanjakas, a local royal family whose 10
elected chiefs reinforce their cultural authority. The taboo against twins is
based on a cultural perception of historical misfortune.
The elders of Mananjary blame the failure of the 1947 revolt against the French
colonial authorities on twins as an example of the curse. It is said a queen
fled the fighting but forgot one of her twins. She sent soldiers back to fetch
the child and they were all massacred. There is no historical proof of the
event.
“There is really no reason at all for this custom, and if I could decide again
I would have kept the children,” Marie Louise Zisllene, a local school
director, told IRIN. Her twins were adopted by a Canadian family in 1988 and
she has had no contact with them since then, but says they have probably had a
better education than they would have received in Madagascar.
Prof Ignace Rakoto, co-author with Gracy Fernandes and Nelly Ranaivo
Rabetokotany of a recent study on the town’s rejection of twins, Les
jumeaux de Mananjary, entre abandon et protection, told IRIN that “The
taboo causes great suffering among the families”. He belongs to a clan that
does not practice the twins curse.
“I grew up in this area without knowing this [giving twins up for adoption] was
happening, as no one ever talked about twins. Some people became very upset
when we started investigating,” Rakoto said. “They asked us why we wanted to
talk about these things in the press.”
Rakoto, who is also a former education minister, said the chiefs see the taboo
as “part of their identity – I try to tell them that you can’t build your
identity around a tradition that is wrong”.
When Voangy Razafy, 31, gave birth to twins she tried to convince the family
that she should be allowed to keep the children, but Razafy’s grandfather, a
chief of the local Antambahoaka clan, refused to break with tradition.
“In the end even my mother turned against me and told me to leave,” she said.
The cost of defying the taboo meant Razafy had to move to another part of the
town, where she lives in penury, ostracized by her family. “They said that my
children would turn against their parents when they were big.”
Twins are conceived either when multiple eggs are released during ovulation, or
a single egg divides, and incidence varies greatly. In Central Africa the
incidence of twins is estimated at 6 percent, while in the US it is 3.2 percent.
In and around Mananjary, twins occur slightly less often than the national
average of about 2.8 percent of all births in Madagascar, according to Rakoto,
but this may be a reflection of the area’s taboo, which may discourage birth
registrations of twins.
The belief that twins bring misfortune upon communities is mainly prevalent in
the Vatovavy-Fitovinany region in the southeast of the country, from the north
of Manakara to Mananjary, which has a population of about 233,697.
The tradition demands that twins be abandoned at birth and left to die; the
lucky ones are found and taken in by others. In the town, abandoned twins are
put up for adoption and the practice can cause deep divisions.
“There was this one case where the children had
been found next to a garbage dump. A family of another ethnic background took
one of the girls in. Years later, when the biological parents saw her, they
wanted to take her back, but she refused. Even now, as an adult, she doesn’t
want any contact with her real family,” the authors noted.
In 1987 the Catja Adoption Centre for Abandoned Twins was established, but it
was greeted with resentment by some members of the community. “When we just
opened the centre, the neighbours complained that the wind, which was blowing
over our house, was making them sick. So we had to move to this place, far away
from the town,” Julie Rasoarinanana, who runs the centre, told IRIN.
Some members of her family also disapproved of her work and warned her that she
would be barred from entering the royal huts, known as the Tranobe, because “I
touched twins”.
The centre has arranged the adoption of 300 pairs of twins since it opened, and
has had to navigate tougher adoption rules after the authorities imposed
stricter regulations to deter child traffickers.
It is now overflowing with 96 children because some street children have also
sought refuge there and single mothers work at the centre in exchange for board
and accommodation.
In Mananjary, which has a population of about 27,000, it is becoming more
common for birth parents to keep their twins, but many others still abide by
the tradition and attitudes in the surrounding villages have not changed much.
Looking for answers
The centre distributes boxes, food and blankets through its network in
outlying villages to help twins given up by their parents to survive the
journey to the centre. “It’s mostly the midwives and friends who bring them,
because parents are still afraid to travel with twins,” Rasoarinanana said.
The Mpanjakas are still seen as figures of authority and the arbiters of custom
and tradition. They decide who participates in traditional ceremonies and who
is permitted into family tombs to visit their deceased ancestors. Access to the
Tranobe is also seen as essential, as it is the forum where disputes are
resolved and decisions affecting the community taken.
Rakoto is forming an association to fight against the custom. He suggests the
use of “both the carrot and the stick, but more carrots than sticks” in attempting
to lift the taboo, and believes it would only make matters worse if the
authorities forced parents to abandon the tradition of the twins curse.
He would like to see financial assistance for
the parents of twins and training for midwives and doctors. “The most important
decision is taken at birth. It will help the parents to decide if there is
already a package with extra milk, clothes and blankets available right there.
Because, on top of having to defy tradition, the parents have the additional
cost of caring for two children at once.”
School director Zisllene, who plans to join Rakoto’s association, sees the need
for showing the mothers of twins an alternative. “What we need are concrete
examples,” she says. “Women should not only keep their children, but they
should also bring them to the ceremonies. They shouldn’t be so timid about it.
This way others can see that it’s possible.”
There
may be a solution. The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), working closely with the
researchers, is looking to a neighbouring community where the chiefs arranged a
special ceremony for lifting the taboo on twins.
“It was a real cultural liberation,” Rakoto said.” When I went there, the
mothers were walking proudly through the village, one child in each arm.”
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