Musician calls on Namibian women to convince partners to get circumcision

Award-winning Namibian musician Martin Morocky has called on Namibian women to convince their male partners to be circumcised.

Morocky is an ambassador of the five-year Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision campaign launched by Namibian Ministry of Health and Social Services, dubbed the "Smart Cut" campaign.

"I call on all the ladies to help us convince their male partners to be circumcised. It's their men and they know what they want," he said in an interview with Xinhua on Saturday.

"The benefits for females with circumcised male partners include reduced chances of getting cervical cancer. When a man is circumcised, spread of sexually transmitted infections is also lower," he said.

The campaign targets to circumcise 20,000 men this year in a quest to reduce HIV and AIDS. This is in addition to a figure of 16,341 men circumcised since May 2014.

As part of the campaign, the team will visit the Erongo, Zambezi and Oshana regions in May. In 2014, the Zambezi region recorded the highest HIV prevalent rate of 23.7 percent.

"We are starting off with the regions that are hard hit by HIV more than others. We hope that by introducing Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision, with the combination of condom use and others, we will further reduce the burden of HIV and AIDS," said Johannes Haufiku, demand creative manager of the Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision at the Ministry of Health and Social Services.

In Namibia, about 215,000 people are living with HIV. A survey carried out in 2014 shows that in Namibia 131,103 people are currently receiving anti-retroviral therapy.

The Ministry aims to circumcise 330,000 men between 2014 and 2018. Enditem