Church in SWAZILAND Talks to Girls About AIDS

SWAZILAND: RIGHTS/HEALTH/ /05/08/02 Sabanews

MBABANE -- Church leaders in SWAZILAND are taking up new activists roles to fight child sexual abuse and AIDS.

The SWAZILAND Council of Churches is targeting teenage girls for special attention to receive advice on HIV transmission and human rights.

‘'We are working with the churches on a new initiation called ‘Say Yes to Children',” confirmed Alan Brody, SWAZILAND’s representative for the UN children’s agency, UNICEF, to Inter Press Service (IPS).

“The issue of AIDS is intimately tied with the issue of gender and child 's rights. We are finding that incidents of incest and child abuse have a direct bearing on the HIV infection rate,” he is quoted saying in an IPS report. SWAZILAND has the second highest rate of infection in Africa after BOTSWANA.

Lisa Dube, a 17-year-old high school student from rural Mliba, told IPS: “In our Bible study groups at AME (African Methodist Episcopal) Church, we are learning about our right to say no to sex.”

A lot of girls think that when an uncle or cousin or sometimes even the father says to have sex, they feel they have to because the relative tells them that the Bible says it is proper.

“At Bible study we learn this is not so. Being forced to have sex is a violation of our human rights. It is also easy to get AIDS,” Lisa asserts. /Sabanews/an

.. ENDS SABANEWS ..

AIDS Epidemic Fuels Rural Need for Health Centres in ZAMBIA

ZAMBIA: HEALTH/RIGHTS/ /0508/02 Sabanews

CHIMFUNSHI -- Malita Chembe lost her seriously ill two-year old son in February this year because she lived 35 kms away from the nearest health centre.

Now, the remote farming area in the north of ZAMBIA has its own health centre.

''At long last, we've got our own health centre here. We shall no longer go far to get treatment,'' Chembe told Inter Press Service (IPS).

Health centres are vital to ZAMBIA, where the rural population has been hardest hit by the HIV/AIDS pandemic, which has infected about a million of its people.

ZAMBIA, with a population of about 10.2 million, has one medial doctor per 10,500 inhabitants

For Chembe’s health centre, her local community provided labour and moulded bricks, while the European Union donated 200,000 U.S. dollars for building materials. /Sabanews/an

.. ENDS SABANEWS ..

Colombian Courts to Decide AIDS Treatment

COLOMBIA: HEALTH/RIGHTS/ /05/08/02 Sabanews

BOGOTA – Courts in COLOMBIA are being asked to decide on free treatment for people living with HIV/AIDS.

Women have filed most of the lawsuits demanding that the social security system in COLOMBIA provide full and free medical treatment for HIV/AIDS, a report by Inter Press Service (IPS) says.

However, the figures show “the disease is more widely among the male population, though figures can be misleading,” the director of the Colombian Anti-AIDS League is quoted telling IPS.

The most vulnerable people, he admits, are precisely those who “are often not considered in health studies.” For instance, women who work in the home.

So far courts have ruled in favour of the plaintiffs in 513 lawsuits seeking medical treatment and drugs that are not covered by the social security system.

An official report indicates that the rise in legal claims for HIV/AIDS treatment, involving private and public health service providers alike, grew 434 percent since 2000 in COLOMBIA. /Sabanews/an
.. ENDS SABANEWS ..