Africa’s last absolute monarch has summoned unmarried young women and girls from across his kingdom of Swaziland (renamed Eswatini) to gather at his palace, the Ludzidzini Royal Residence, on August 25 for the annual Umhlanga Reed Dance.

They will be made to dance bare-breasted and paraded before King Mswati III on the final day of this festival on August 31, when he can pick one of them as the latest addition to his collection of over a dozen wives. His government has declared the day a national holiday.​

“Participants must meet specific physical and behavioral standards. The monarchy and state officials inspect and judge young women’s bodies. Clothing, hairstyles, and deportment are strictly regulated. This represents state control over women’s bodies and sexuality. Young women are displayed for the gaze of the king, officials, and international observers,” the Communist Party of Swaziland (CPS) said in a statement on July 24.​

While presented to the international community as “a vibrant expression of Swazi culture,” the ceremony is in fact a tool for legitimizing the monarchy, added its statement, calling on the people to reject the ceremony.​

The royal summons for the ceremony was issued by Mswati on July 17 through the designated Indvuna yeMbali (Overseer of the Maidens), who instructed the chiefs to ensure that maidens from all of the King’s 350-odd chiefdoms are prepped and transported for the purpose.​

The chiefs enforce this decree through a combination of coercion and incentive. They impose fines on families that refuse to send their young girls. In a country where nearly 60% of his subjects live in “abject poverty,” eking out a survival on less than two dollars a day, fines, often demanded in the form of cattle, are prohibitive. On the other hand, small cash doled out to girls who participate is a major opportunity for families to ease their burdens, even if only for a few days.​

Meanwhile, King Mswati, who owns palaces, private jets, and a fleet of Rolls-Royce cars, earned over a million dollars in 2025 from “donations” by businesses that reap huge profits from the foreign tourists.

While most come from neighboring South Africa and Mozambique, the international market is also fast-growing, with increasing numbers of tourists arriving from Europe, Asia, and Australia to watch the girls paraded by the monarchy.​

“This reflects the commodification of women under both feudalism and capitalism,” exploiting them under the cover of tradition for profit, in a ceremony that sits on the “intersection of gender and class oppression,” the CPS maintains. “Women’s bodies become state property, controlled, displayed, and allocated according to patriarchal hierarchy.”​

Freeing women from this exploitation, it argued, is an “integral” part of the Swazi struggle for liberation from the clutches of the last absolute monarchy on the continent that has banned all political parties, including the CPS.​

Read more: Communist Party of Swaziland members face repeated arrests, torture, and persecution

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