RIGHTS-SOUTHERN AFRICA: AIDS the Focus of Int’l Women’s Day

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Moyiga Nduru

JOHANNESBURG, Mar 7 2004 (IPS) - “As a woman, I can’t bring a condom home. If I do, then I’m not a wife – I’m a prostitute. My husband will ask me whether I have a secret lover. If I say I don’t, he will want to know where I had learnt how to use a condom,” says Siphiwe Hlophe.

A member of the non-governmental organisation Swaziland Positive Living (SWAPOL), Hlophe is herself HIV-positive.

SWAPOL was founded by five women who had contracted the virus. It works in three Swazi communities, promoting awareness of AIDS, providing care to the terminally ill and helping people to earn an income.

“One of the major problems facing Swazi women is how to negotiate safe sex. It is a big problem. Men don’t understand it,” Hlophe told IPS. But, she warns, “By ignoring women’s rights, men are exposing women to HIV/AIDS.”

The hope of Hlophe and others is that people everywhere will become a little more receptive to the importance of women’s rights today (Mar. 8), which is International Women’s Day. This year, the theme for the day is “Women and HIV/AIDS”.

Forty percent of Swazi adults are believed to be living with HIV/AIDS, (the prevalence rates for various Southern African countries are amongst the highest in the world). According to the United Nations, the majority of those infected are women.

“The incredible assault of HIV/AIDS on women has no parallel in human history. Women are the pillars of the family and community – the mothers, the caregivers, the farmers. The pandemic is preying on them relentlessly, threatening them in a way that the world has never yet confronted,” Stephen Lewis, the UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, said recently.

In Lesotho, the government has announced a drastic policy of testing all adults within the next year, under the auspices of a universal testing and counselling initiative that kicked off last week.

“When completed, some one million adults from a population of 2.2 million people will know their status,” Phooko Motloheloa, the Minister of Health and Social Welfare, announced on Feb. 26. “Every Masotho has a right to know his/her HIV status.”

Lesotho has the fourth highest adult prevalence rate of HIV/AIDS in the world. Thirty-one percent of adults are currently infected with the virus – and this figure shows no signs of dropping.

The UN Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) estimates that 70 people are dying every day from AIDS-related illnesses in the small country, while 73,000 children have been orphaned by the pandemic. This amounts to a staggering 17 percent of children in Lesotho.

For the past two years, AIDS has also played a role in a complex humanitarian crisis which is affecting six countries in Southern Africa: Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Severe food shortages, extreme poverty and the debilitating effects of HIV/AIDS have combined to ravage communities across the region.

Distress calls put out by humanitarian agencies have prevented the onset of famine. However, Southern Africa remains in a vulnerable position, according to the UN, with some 6.5 million people still in need of aid. Improving the situation of women is a key part of resolving this long-running crisis.

“As we celebrate Women’s Day we should also focus on young girls. This is because young girls become older women tomorrow. To uplift them, Zambia should improve the quality of education for girls,” Masuka Mutenda of Youth Media told IPS.

Youth Media is one of the leading organisations devoted to the welfare of young people in Zambia. It aims to promote safe sex amongst the youth, as well as other life skills.

Mutenda said her organisation is disturbed by the rising incidence of child abuse in Zambia. “Girls are vulnerable because of poverty. Older men sleep with them (believing that they will) get rich. This exposes them to HIV/AIDS and STD’s (sexually transmitted diseases),” she noted.

Youth Media says women need to be given skills to help them escape the poverty trap. As women account for most of Zambia’s farmers, agricultural training would clearly be of enormous benefit. “They need some training in farming,” says Mutenda. “With skills, they can produce more food and sell (it) in the market to help their families.”

But, if women need to have their outlook on life adjusted, then so do men.

“I have just been resolving a dispute between a woman and her husband,” recounts Hlophe. “The woman sold some mats, which she made herself, in the market. Later her husband came and demanded the money. They began fighting. The woman says her husband never shares his money with her and that why should she share hers with him?”

“Such behaviour does not empower a woman,” adds Hlophe. “Instead it pulls down a woman and subjects her to perpetual poverty.”

Enabling women to take up their proper place in society will also involve freeing them from the sometimes intolerable burden of caring for people living with HIV/AIDS.

“When women are caring for people living with HIV/AIDS, it removes them away from other activities. They will not have enough time to work on the farm. And this affects food production,” says Isabella Matambanadzo, Executive Director of the Zimbabwe Women’s Resource Centre and Network.

Instead, the 4.1 million Africans who have reached the advanced stages of AIDS should be treated, Matambanadzo adds.

“This will eliminate the burden of care from women and girls who do the majority of the work related to care, collecting firewood and fetching water to bathe the persons living with HIV/AIDS.”