A relaxed Forbes Gwilize seated on his remaining cotton bags. Credit: Nebert Mulenga/IPS

By Nebert Mulenga
LUSAKA, Dec 5 2012 (IPS)

Five years ago, Forbes Gwilize, 52, a cotton grower from Musena village, 80 kilometres north of the Zambian capital Lusaka, was hardly able to earn a living from farming maize.

“My biggest problem was tilling the land early enough in the season – I couldn’t manage to do it because I had no implements. I had to wait until the rains started and I was growing half a hectare of cotton and one hectare of maize,” the father of seven told IPS.

But today, his story is different. He has expanded his cotton field from one and a half hectares to 33, and he has acquired new assets, such as a tractor, and even extended his property.

“I have built about eight houses here on my farm, I have bought a tractor and I am sending my children to some of the best schools in the country. I am comfortable,” he said. Gwilize said now he only grows maize for food security, preferring to earn a living from growing cotton.

Gwilize is one if thousands of cotton farmers currently benefiting from out-grower schemes run by five leading private cotton ginning companies, including Dunavant Cotton, Cargill Cotton Ginnery and Continental Ginnery.

In this southern African nation, out-grower schemes, also known as contract farming, are entered into according to specific conditions agreed upon between the buyer and farmer beforehand, such as the pricing of the commodity.

The ginning companies provide farmers with inputs such as seeds, chemicals and fertilisers. They also offer technical assistance and a ready market as they buy entire harvests from farmers. The companies then process the cotton and export the product.

Gwilize was contracted by the multinational ginning company Dunavant Cotton. It was a deal, he said, that transformed his farming methods and standard of living.

In addition to money he earns from his own harvest, Gwilize also earns an income from receiving inputs from Dunavant and distributing them to fellow farmers on credit.

“I have so many ways of making money with Dunavant apart from my farming,” he explained with pride. “I recruit other farmers to grow cotton as a cash crop for Dunavant and give out farming inputs loans to them. I get 20 percent monetary commission for every full loan recovery the company makes.”

Gwilize acquired his tractor through a loan facility from Dunavant, and it took him only two years to repay it – the agreed repayment period was three years. Now, apart from cultivating his fields, Gwilize hires his tractor out to other small-scale farmers at a set fee of 46 dollars per hectare ploughed or reaped.

On average, he cultivates five hectares per day, netting a minimum of 2,000 dollars every month from hiring out his tractor.

“I have since employed a full-time driver, and I also have four permanent employees working for me. I have made a lot of profit from this tractor; at this very moment it is out (being used to cultivate land) and I am earning per hectare,” he said.

Nigel Seabrook, managing director for Dunavant Zambia Limited, said the company is currently financing 175,000 farmers countrywide and also assisting them in mechanising their production by selling them tractors that are payable over a three-year period.

“Each farmer benefiting from the programme is able to get better yields and an expansion on their yields due to mechanisation. The tractors will have a direct impact on the farmers and the immediate communities in which their tractors are operating on a long-term and sustainable basis,” Seabrook told IPS.

“We give small-scale farmers the full service; everything they need to be able to get the best yields they possibly can. Therefore, our outreach programme gives the farmer a lot of training and a lot of education in addition to all the inputs.”

Dunavant has been in Zambia for a little over a decade now, working with smallholder farmers to improve cotton production in the country.

In 2011, the company decided to diversify and extend its input financing to other crops – sunflower, soybeans and the staple maize.

“We are buying maize, sunflower and soybeans after funding production in all our depots to give the farmer an all-round package; we really want our farmers to have a very diverse range of products so that they can get the best out of their total land usage,” Seabrook said.

Robert Munthali, a freelance agricultural researcher, described the intensified private-sector-driven out-grower schemes as effective tools in reducing the country’s poverty levels and bettering life in rural areas.

“It is a well-known fact that the cotton industry in Zambia has, for a long time, been critical to the provision of sustainable rural livelihoods and economic development of the nation,” Munthali said.

“So, with the current out-grower programmes being financed by various ginning companies, the situation can only get better. Out-grower schemes, especially driven by the private sector, should be encouraged for all crops if Zambia is to reduce rural poverty.”

Cotton has been an integral part of the Zambian economy over the years. Prior to the wholesale privatisation of industries in the 1990s, Zambia boasted over 140 textile and clothing companies, which employed more than 25,000 people.

But the widespread import of textiles and other clothing has created undue external competition and in the process choked the local industry. Minister of Agriculture and Livestock Emmanuel Chenda told IPS that private sector initiatives in cotton production, such as the out-grower schemes, could be pivotal in reviving the local textile and clothing industry.

“In the absence of affordable credit finance from the banks, these out-grower facilities are greatly assisting our farmers. My government would like to encourage many out-grower schemes to take place in the country even for other crops – it is a good thing,” Chenda said.

The minister, however, accused some ginning companies of giving farmers a “raw deal” by offering lopsided terms and said that the government was working on measures to ensure the negotiation process was more balanced for all the involved parties.

“There must be good business practices and fair play; the agreements must be negotiated in a way that is fair to all the players. The scale must not be tilted towards the provider of the inputs,” he said.

“The situation of last year with some cotton farmers was most unfortunate; some ginning companies made cotton farmers carry the burden of the collapsed market alone, as the input providers hedged their rescue against the returns.”

Farmers from Mpongwe district in the mineral-rich Copperbelt Province claim they were evicted from this 46,876 hectares of commercial land, by a South African-based agribusiness. Credit: Nebert Mulenga/IPS

By Nebert Mulenga
LUSAKA, Nov 1 2012 (IPS)

Increased agricultural development in Zambia will actually compromise the country’s food security as peasant farmers continue to be driven off their customary land to pave the way for large-scale local and foreign agribusiness, according to the University of Zambia’s dean of the school of agriculture, Dr. Mickey Mwala.

“Smallholder farmers are the people responsible for food security in Zambia. So, evicting them could have a long-term effect on the country’s food security situation, if prolonged and extended,” he told IPS.

According to the United Nations World Food Programme, most households in Zambia are currently food secure, with only 62,842 of the country’s estimated 13.4 million people being acutely food insecure.

“Land grabs increase the incidence and prevalence of poverty in the country by increasing the number of people who can’t grow their own food, and who can’t send their children to school,” Mwala said.

The eviction of farmers from their customary land started 12 years ago but assumed prominence after 2005 when the government started calling for increased foreign investment, according to the Zambia Land Alliance, a land rights advocacy organisation.

Land grabs by both foreign and local investors are now considered commonplace in this southern African nation. In Masaiti district, in the mineral-rich Copperbelt Province, over 2,000 farmers were allegedly evicted from their land in 2011 following the acquisition of over 200 hectares by a Nigerian cement manufacturer. They were later paid 250 dollars per hectare as compensation.

The establishment of mining businesses in the North-Western, Copperbelt and Luapula provinces has also left thousands of smallholder farmers homeless.

According to a 2011 report by GRAIN, an international non-governmental organisation that promotes the sustainable management and use of agricultural biodiversity, titled “Land grabbing and the global food crisis”, three percent of Zambia’s farmlands are controlled by foreigners for agrifood production.

And according to the Oakland Institute, an independent policy think tank, agricultural investment here is on the rise as the government “is quietly marketing and planning the development of at least 1.5 million hectares of its land.”

Although no study has been conducted to determine the actual number of farmers displaced by the land grabs, the Zambia National Farmers Union (ZNFU) said affected farmers could be in their thousands.

According to ZNFU’s vice president Graham Rae, the displacement of farmers from their customary land is an issue of concern. “It has been going on for some time now and many of our farmers, especially in rural areas, are affected.

“Our food security situation could be affected because we are talking of probably thousands of farmers not producing harvests. In countries like South Africa, food security is primarily based on large-scale farmers, whereas in our case the small-scale sector plays a major role. So food security could be negatively affected, not only at household level but also at national level,” Rae said.

Smallholder farmers account for 70 percent of Zambia’s farming community, according to the ZNFU. The union has 600,000 smallholder farmers, emergent farmers, and commercial farmers. Of that number, two-thirds or 400,000 are smallholder farmers. But the total number of smallholder farmers in the country could be double or even triple that as many are not affiliated with the association.

Henry Machina, executive director of the Zambia Land Alliance, an advocacy group, blames the eviction of farmers on the “cumbersome” procedures involved in obtaining title deeds and the “archaic” laws which do not recognise customary rights as a form of land ownership. Under Zambian law, title deeds are the only legal proof of ownership of land.

“To get a title deed, it takes anything between two months and 10 years. The system is very much archaic and centralised – you can only get the title deeds from the Ministry of Lands in Lusaka,” Machina told IPS.

Pretorious Nkhata (pictured with his wife) from Mpongwe district in the mineral-rich Copperbelt Province, says he was driven off his customary land. Courtesy: Thomas Kruchem

“For farmers in rural areas, obtaining a title deed for their land is very costly. They have to pay transport fares as well as pay for meals and lodging facilities every time they travel to make a follow-up. It can cost them up to 10 million Kwacha (about 2,000 dollars) just in the process. As a result, many of them just sit back and continue farming,” said Machina.

Currently 59 percent of Zambians live below the poverty line, with 65 percent of the population living in rural areas.

Pretorious Nkhata, from Mpongwe district in the Copperbelt Province, is one of those farmers. The 68-year-old claims that he was evicted from his 21-hectare piece of customary land, which he had been farming for over 10 years, by a South Africa-based agribusiness in 2008.

Nkhata and the other farmers displaced from the 46,876 hectares of now commercial farmland told IPS that they had obtained their land from a traditional leader but did not get deeds of ownership from the government.

“They said we were squatters, we were intruders on that land. I had 21 hectares … I lost it all…

“They (the South African agribusiness) came with guns and threatened to shoot anyone who resisted moving out. They burnt all our household properties without any notice. We were almost 200 households. They burnt my food barns, clothes, blankets, bedding, television set – they even burnt my fields,” he said.

The agribusiness has since sold the land and closed its operations in Zambia. IPS’ efforts to locate the company for comment proved futile.

A prominent lawyer, who represents displaced farmers and declined to be named, told IPS that people occupying customary land in Zambia have no legal protection, and even their compensation is mostly on humanitarian grounds.

“Sections 33 and 34 of the Lands and Deeds Registry Act say having a certificate of title is a prima facie evidence of ownership of land. The basic principle is that one who has a title is the owner of the land and everything on that land. It doesn’t matter what developments you have put there if you have no title deed,” said the legal representative.

“What we fight for when representing those clients whose land has been repossessed is just some form of compensation for the developments put up on the land – but the new land owners are not under any legal obligation (to pay compensation).”

Permanent secretary in the Ministry of Lands Daizy Ng’ambi told IPS that the government is currently developing a working document to offer some form of security for customary tenure.

“At the moment, there is really no provision for people (on customary land) who do not have title deeds. But it is envisaged that once the working document on security of tenure for customary land has had an input from all stakeholders, issues of customary ownership and proper compensation will be taken into consideration,” Ng’ambi said.

She also said that her ministry was working on improving the technology involved in processing titles, which is expected to cut down on the cumbersome procedures and time taken to obtain one.

Despite these changes, it will not give Nkhata back the land he once thought he owned. Now Nkhata resides in a tiny village surrounded by wire-fenced commercial farms, some 40 kilometres from his former farm. “Now I am stranded. They didn’t give me any compensation or alternative land,” he said.

When Jose Chiburre was a boy growing up in Mozambique, he would often challenge his friends to a swim across the Incomati River. That was in the 1970s, when the river was 300 metres wide in the dry season: today, the race would be over before it begins.

ZAMCOM hopes to establish environmental flows on the Zambezi. Credit: Johannes Myburgh/IPS

“In those days, we would compete against each other in swimming, but not anymore. The river can’t support any swimming in the dry season, because the levels are very low,” says Chiburre.

Forty years ago, the Incomati flowed through the Magudi District of Maputo, where Chiburre grew up, in majestic splendour, more than 700 metres wide during the wet season. Now, except during extreme flooding, the river broadens to a little more than half that width during the rains, and dwindles to a trickle during the dry season.

Chiburre, who now works as an environmental researcher in the Zambezi River basin, attributes the lower water levels in the Incomati River to increased demands upstream, where thousands of new arrivals draw water for irrigation, domestic use and livestock.

The diminished river can no longer support the diverse aquatic plant and animal life that it used to. Raphia australis, a palm naturally occurring only along the Mozambican side of Incomati River, is on the verge of extinction, while a number of bird species including the Wattled Crane, the Black-rumped Buttonquail, the Blue Swallow and the Yellowbilled Oxpecker have all been classified as endangered species.

While the other species cling to life elsewhere, the Incomati is the only habitat for the raphia australis.

The roan antelope (Hippotragus equines) and wild dogs (Lycaon pictus) are among the endangered animals in the Incomati basin.

Chiburre works for the World Wide Fund for Nature in Lusaka, Zambia, as the programme leader for the Joint Zambezi River Basin Environmental Flows Programme.

Maintaining environmental flows – the quantity, quality and annual cycles of water needed to maintain a river’s ecosystem – is among the priorities of the Zambezi Watercourse Commission (ZAMCOM), the organisation responsible for coordinating water management throughout the Zambezi River basin, which is shared by Angola, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Tanzania and Mozambique.

“At the moment, we are trying to bring all stakeholders to see if it’s possible to establish environmental flows in the Zambezi river basin,” he tells IPS.

Phase One of the programme, which will conclude this month, focused on establishing baseline data for just three of the eight Zambezi states: Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique. Phase Two will be scaled up to other member states.

“We really pay very little attention to the environment (as users of water) compared to the other users,” Chiburre said.

One of the immediate impacts of this inattention in the Zambezi has been the drying up of some wetlands, particularly in the Lower Zambezi Wetlands in Mozambique.

“They are drying out due to lack of water,” he said.

Chiburre adds that people in the Zambezi’s flood plains have also reported declining yields, as reduced seasonal floods affect the amount of water and nutrient-rich silt deposited each year.

“Nature wants water for its integrity, especially ecosystems directly dependent on water,” Chiburre told IPS.

“So if you don’t implement environmental flows, you damage the social fabric. People resort to unsustainable practices for survival, and this breeds conflict – either with nature or with fellow human beings.

“Yet, these are the species that bring ecological balance in the ecosystem. They are the basis for the living of the people; people live on those plants, animals and interact with them in balancing nature.”

Michael Mutale, executive secretary of the ZAMCOM Secretariat in Gaborone, says the Zambezi basin’s environmental flows programme is an integral part of the Commission’s focus on improving effective management of natural resources for sustainable development.

“We are seeking to manage ecological and economic functions of the wetlands, control water pollution from point sources, control aquatic weeds, as well as promote sustainable fisheries management towards regional food security; which is where the environmental flows programme becomes very effective.”

There are many factors – dams, agriculture, mining – that impact on the flows of the mighty Zambezi, but it has not yet been transformed to nearly the same degree as the Incomati. And the memories of a boy who grew up in Maputo’s Magudi District may be one of the keys to protecting the integrity of this 3,000 kilometre river.

(END)

By Nebert Mulenga
MANSA, Zambia, May 27 2011 (IPS)

Mirriam Kauseni is on a quest to become her town’s first ever female parliamentarian. She has yet to be elected to run for the post by her party, the Patriotic Front (PF), but Kauseni has already been conducting door-to-door campaigns, telling people to vote for her in the country’s national elections.

Mirriam Kauseni has been conducting door-to-door campaigns, telling people to vote for her in the country's national elections. Credit: Nebert Mulenga/IPS

“I have never stopped going into the field from 2006 to-date. I have been to remote villages in Mansa Central. My name is a household name,” she says.

The PF is yet to announce its candidates for the forthcoming general election, but Kauseni has continued to campaign. When asked why she was campaigning before the party made its final decision on her candidature, she tells IPS: “I don’t know the chances but if they follow popularity of a candidate, then I think I stand a very good chance. I am working very hard, I am campaigning, I am on the ground to ensure the party adopts me, to ensure I win the election after I am adopted.”

This is Kauseni’s second attempt to run for parliament. She first put herself forward as a parliamentary candidate in Zambia’s 2006 general election. She was then a member of the ruling Movement for Multi- party Democracy (MMD).

But she says she was not elected to run by the MMD because she had no money to fund the campaigns. She adds that she also believes she was not elected because she was a woman. She has since defected to the PF, the country’s main opposition, which enjoys massive support in northern Zambia. The PF is not funding her campaigns either, but her husband now financially supports her campaigning. Kauseni does not say why her husband did not support her campaigning when she was with the MMD but says his support has enabled her to reach the outmost parts of the constituency. But, Kauseni says, she cannot always rely on her husband’s support. “But sometimes even my husband tells me … ‘I have given you enough money so, this time look for some money on your own.’ He gets tired and it’s normal, because I am always asking for money. So that’s my biggest challenge. Besides that, I don’t get anything elsewhere. The political party also doesn’t give me anything, not yet,”

Kauseni’s main campaign issues hinge on opening up agricultural-based factories and markets for farming produce, as well as improving the road network in the rural parts of the constituency.

Kauseni is not alone in her quest. The Zambia National Women’s Lobby Group (ZNWLG), a gender-based non-governmental organisation promoting the participation of more women in governance, is fully behind her.

Since early 2011, the ZNWLG has been empowering prospective women politicians with skills in public speaking, self-confidence, self-esteem, and usage of persuasive language when articulating issues, among others. Women ‘politicians’ are also learning about public office etiquette, the functioning of the arms of government, and leadership in general.

Kauseni is one of 198 women trained under the programme so far. “The (ZNWLG) training was about encouraging us not to give in to men, not to accept any type of intimidation, to be confident, to be visionary and to be courageous. There’s going to be a bit of change like in the approach. They taught us how to best approach the people,” Kauseni tells IPS.

The women being trained were floated by their political parties as prospective candidates for parliamentary and local government seats, says Beauty Phiri, chair of the ZNWLG.

Zambia has one of the worst records in the region in terms of women participation in politics. Out of the current 150 MPs, only 22 are women; with a further 91 women occupying local government seats out of the over 3,000 councillors countrywide.

The ZNWLG is concerned and says the record is embarrassing for Southern Africa’s oldest democracy.

“Our biggest worry is that men are still the final decision makers in this. A woman would have laid the ground, done everything in that constituency, but when it comes to adoption, it is the men who have to make the final decision,” Phiri comments.

“They will tell her, ‘yes you have done everything but we feel financially you cannot manage, so you are going to be the campaign manager for this gentleman who has a financial muscle’.”

But the response to the ZNWLG training programme is providing a window of hope for better things to come. Phiri explains: “The response is overwhelming. In southern province, for example, we had a programme to train about 35 women but 45 turned up and instead of sending them away, we had to train them all.”

Meanwhile, Kauseni believes in herself and has just relinquished her position as PF vice-treasurer for Mansa District, which she has held since 2008, to concentrate fully on her campaign as a prospective parliamentary candidate for Mansa Central Constituency.

“I am going to do it, with or without the money. I talk to people; I tell them what I stand for. With or without the money, I am going to talk to the people because I don’t intend to buy them. I intend to talk to them.”

Excerpt:

By Nebert Mulenga
MANSA, Zambia, Jan 29 2011 (IPS)

Sebastian Chilekwa’s job title at the Luapula Water and Sewerage Company is “Managing Director of Dilemma”. Or it should be.

Sebastian Chilekwa, Managing Director, Luapula Water and Sewerage Company Credit: Nebert Mulenga/IPS

The company’s revenues can’t cover its operating expenses, far less pay to upgrade infrastructure. But its client base cannot readily pay more for water.

Inadequate service

“This water may look like urine or something like that, but this is the water we use for everything,” said Monica Mutale with distaste, drawing water from a public tap in Mutende site and service residential area in Mansa town, the provincial headquarters of Luapula.

“Sometimes, like when we have visitors, we buy [bottled] mineral water but it’s very expensive. You can’t manage to drink mineral water [every day of the month].”

A majority of people in the province draw their water for household use from shallow and frequently unprotected wells dug by hand.

Zambia’s northern Luapula Province has more surface water than any other part of Zambia. Yet the government’s Central Statistical Office rates the province as having the lowest coverage of any province in terms of safe water supply – at 18 percent of the population – and adequate sanitation at 2.3 percent. The last published census, in 2000, placed four of Luapula’s seven districts in the bottom 10 of the national ranking of Zambia’s 73 districts for access to water and sanitation.

In his office in a rented three-bedroom house in Low Density, one of Mansa’s better residential areas, Chilekwa concedes the scale of the challenge in front of him.

“The quality and coverage of water supply and sanitation services [in Luapula] is the lowest in the country. This is a direct consequence of lack of investment in the water sector since the 1970s,” he says.

“As a result, we are only able to service 12 percent of our coverage area. Large areas of our supply catchment are not supplied … with more than 30 percent of the formal housing area without supply, and none of the many peri-urban areas [where the poor reside] is covered.”

Though the infrastructure inherited from the councils is badly run-down, Chilekwa maintains that all piped water pumped by the utility is properly treated, and attributes the bad colour to poor filtration.

Insufficient revenue

Luapula Water and Sewerage Company was formed in 2008, beginning operations a year later as mining of manganese, copper and citrine in the area placed growing demand for water on the region. Luapula was the final conversion of muncipal-owned utilities across the country into commercial entities. Before the LWSC, responsibility to provide piped water fell to each of the province’s seven district councils.

Luapula Water can barely meet its financial obligations. Its monthly operating expenses are around $61,000, according to Chilekwa, but monthly collections are barely a third of that sum.

“This is making it difficult to meet even basic expenses like salaries which are standing at 204 million kwacha ($41,000) per month. Salary payments are in arrears for five months.”

The company also inherited unpaid electricity bills from the system’s former operators that now stand at $250,000.

Part of the reason for the low revenue lies in the paltry fees that LWSC’s small client base pays for the water. Fixed monthly charges for water range between $5 for medium class and $10 for high class residential areas. In the Zambian capital, non-metred consumers in shanty compounds pay the Lusaka utility around $25, while those in high class residential areas pay up to $100 per month.

But increasing the tariffs requires the approval of the National Water and Sanitation Council (NWASCO), a regulatory body overseeing the operations of the commercial utilities in the country.

In 2010, Luapula Water applied for a 100 percent tariff adjustment to enable it invest into the system, but the Council has approved a hike of just half that requested.

“Previous tariffs were extremely low and inadequate to sustain the operations and maintenance costs of the company,” acknowledged NWASCO in a press statement.

“With the new tariff, non-metered customers in Mansa’s low, medium and high cost areas will pay 30,000 kwacha ($6) and 75,000 ($15) kwacha per month… NWASCO has a mandate to ensure water supply and sanitation provision is affordable to all.”

Chilekwa says it’s too little, especially as the increase outside Mansa district will be limited to 30 percent. Luapula Water is also at a disadvantage compared to its fellow water utilities in other mining areas, because unlike on the Copperbelt, Luapula Province’s fast-growing mining operations have their own independent water supply.

The future

He places his immediate hopes in a pledge of support from DANIDA, the Danish International Development Assistance, to expand the customer base over three years.

“All in all, we need about $28 million capital investment to be able to upgrade our system, and start making profits.”

Securing investment for new and expanded infrastructure and developing sustainable revenue streams while serving an impoverished customer base scattered across a wide area are twin challenges facing not just Luapula’s director of dilemma, but water managers across Southern Africa.

Excerpt:

Diana Banda* is quickly running out of excuses to give her six-year-old son about why he has to take a schedule of drugs every day.

Her son David* is HIV-positive and has been on anti-retroviral treatment (ART) for two years. But he may not learn the truth about his HIV status anytime soon as his mother thinks up one excuse after another as to why he has to religiously take the drugs.

“He asks me almost every day why he has to take these same drugs all the time. At first, I told him that he had a persistent headache but when I went away for a week, he skipped (the medication) for two days and then protested that he had had no headache,” said Banda, a housewife in the Zambian capital, Lusaka.

“So as a family, we have now had to convince him that according to the doctor, his head will start enlarging if he ever stops taking the medicine; but he seems to question everything we say and do,” she said.

Banda is by no means the only parent shielding her child from knowing his HIV status. There are thousands other Zambian parents and guardians who are too scared to reveal the HIV status of their kids to them – for reasons ranging from the uncertainty of a child’s reaction, to the fear of stigma, and even from the fear being judged as promiscuous by their children.

But health experts say families and communities who shield children in their care from knowing their HIV/AIDS status are undermining the country’s attempts to promote paediatric anti-retroviral (ARV) uptake and adherence.

“The uptake of paediatric ARV treatment is still very low as compared to the adults and mostly this is because some parents are not very keen on bringing their children for testing. (But then) even those who test and are put on treatment in most cases do not seek the co-operation of the child in the treatment process, which affects adherence,” Dr Mutinta Nalubamba, a paediatric ART co-ordinator in the health ministry, said.

She said that at the end of 2009, just over 30,000 children were tested for HIV, though over 70,000 needed the test based on the number of HIV-positive mothers who delivered. “We are asking all families with HIV-positive children to be more open about the problem, because hiding the truth puts a child’s life at greater risk,” Nalubamba said.

About 40,000 children are born HIV-positive each year in Zambia but only 21,000 are currently receiving ARVs.

“Over 90 percent of the HIV-positive children acquire the virus through mother to child transmission and the unfortunate part is that over 50 percent die before age two because of no treatment or non-adherence,” Nalubamba told IPS.

But it’s not such an easy thing to do. Banda says she cannot stand the thought of her son finding out that he is HIV-positive.

“It will hurt me so much as an adult because there are days when I feel like I will die any minute – but what about a child?” asks Banda, whose husband died of an AIDS-related illnesses in 2007.

Matildah Mwamba, a traditional birth attendant and marriage counsellor, says most Zambian families fail to talk to their children about their HIV status because of cultural norms that encourage elders to filter the information passed onto children.

“The biggest problem is that HIV/AIDS is still stigmatised as the deadly or incurable pandemic, which is like a death sentence. Before breaking the news to a child, it’s like we all have to wonder how the child would take it … and this is why people prefer to tell a child lies or deny the child any possible access to information on the disease,” Mwamba said.

Banda is so afraid that her son may accidently discover that his drugs are ARVs that she does not allow him to watch TV alone or even attend functions where people may be talking about HIV. “(It is) just in case he stumbles on some programme that may make he suspect the drugs (he is taking) might be AIDS drugs. We always change TV channels whenever we see an HIV advert or just any programme on HIV/AIDS,” Banda said.

The ministry of health is currently developing guidelines on paediatric counselling. And a number of non-governmental organisations have embarked on intervention programmes to raise HIV/AIDS awareness and combat the non-disclosure approach adopted by many families with HIV-positive children in their care.

Felix Mwanza, a spokesperson for one NGO, the Treatment and Advocacy Literacy Campaign tells IPS: “We want children to develop a keen interest in knowing their HIV status, to be able to relate with their peers, to be able to open up about issues of HIV and AIDS. It’s only fair that they (children) know the truth so that they can even help in reminding the parents on the aspect of medication.”

*Names have been changed