SWAZI Women Blamed for HIV in MOZAMBIQUE

MOZAMBIQUE: HEALTH/RIGHTS/ /29/06/02

LOMAHASHA, SWAZILAND – Poor immigrant women from MOZAMBIQUE are being blamed for HIV/AIDS in SWAZILAND, according to an Inter Press Service (IPS) report.

There is no statistical or anecdotal evidence to support the charge, IPS says. Yet, at a meeting of headmen, the Manzini South constituency headman declared, “Immigrants from MOZAMBIQUE are the cause of HIV/AIDS, because they do not attend health meetings.”

MOZAMBIQUE is southern Africa’s poorest country. Until 2000 it was the poorest in the world. The result of war and poverty has spawned an exodus of desperately poor people from the country.

SOUTH AFRICA has constructed a concrete fence topped with razor wire, electrified at places, to keep out illegal immigrants from MOZAMBIQUE. SWAZILAND has thousands of Mozambican women economic refugees. But HIV/AIDS is a serious Swazi problem blamed unfairly on Mozambicans, according to IPS.

''On the streets, people think we are prostitutes,'' says Angela Ferreira, a former resident of MOZAMBIQUE's Inhambane province who is now a fish vendor at the Manzini bus station. ''People call me a prostitute to insult me, and men approach me with offers of money or dinner for sex. They cannot believe I just sell fish.'' /Sabanews/an

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Market Women Join Fights against AIDS

TOGO: RIGHTS/HEALTH/29/06/02 Sabanews

LOME – Togo’s famous market women have been mobilised to help control runaway HIV/AIDS, a report by Inter Press Service (IPS) says.

“We happen to be strategically placed to quickly get a message (on safe sex) across to our children, husbands and other women,” Afou Blokpo, a grocer is quoted by IPS.

Some market women in Togo have gone beyond breaking the taboos and offer condoms for sale among their regular wares.

AIDS has orphaned some 95,000 children in Togo. This West African country has a population of 4.5 million.

''We need to break the silence and think about the need to change behaviour so we can fight this pandemic,'' says Nicolas Koudouvo of Rainbow, an anti-AIDS non-governmental organisation (NGO).

After Cote d'Ivoire, Togo is the most ravaged country in West Africa. Burkina Faso ranks third, according to the latest UNAIDS statistics.

''We can no longer stand idly by and observe the ravages created by this disease,'' Atanley Kafui, who sells traditional dress at the Adawlato market, is quoted in the IPS report. /Sabanews/an

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