By snoadmin
Humans are as fallible a species as any other on Earth. That comment magnifies considering our seemingly innate capability to reason. Whether that ability to study, analyze and come to logical conclusions about ourselves is a boon or bane is arguable. Many times hasty conclusions, fear, confusion and panic lead us down a path of ignorance.
Imagine the sheer terror of being a young child with HIV/AIDS, literally dumped at a medical treatment center because no living relative wants to be burdened with caring for you.
Of course, you know nothing of Mother to Child Transmission (MCT) of this “thing” that makes you sick, that your mother is dead, or that nobody wants you because you know little about life, period.
Suddenly, you’ve been discarded by your only remaining trust in humanity, your aunt, because her husband doesn’t want the stigma you unknowingly bring to his household.
This story isn’t contrived. It’s from an article entitled “Aids a death sentence to the children,” from allAfrica.com last week. Nor is it an isolated instance. Approximately 25,000 children are born with HIV/AIDS each in year in Uganda alone as a result of MCT.
We learned nearly a quarter of a century ago, when medical professionals and scientists finally debunked the myth that HIV/AIDS is not a “homosexual disease,” and that the horrid virus could and would infect heterosexual women, intravenous drug users and innocent children with equal ferocity.
The 17th International AIDS conference in Mexico City last month brought out some terrifying realities about women and children’s vulnerability to the pandemic.
The Global Coalition on Women and AIDS showed that in sub-Saharan Africa women and girls comprised nearly 60 percent of adults living with HIV in 2007. Almost half of the adult population living with the virus globally is women.
Of the estimated 25-33 million humans believed to be living with HIV/AIDS in 2007, UNAIDS placed the safe estimate of women with HIV at between 14 and 17 million and the number of children at approximately 2-3 million.
A majority of HIV transmission from adult to adult has long been known to be through unprotected sex with multiple partners without truly knowing the person’s sexual contact history. However, what the conference confirmed is that increasing numbers of women contract the virus because they lack control in sexual relationships.
Among those problems are that women may be afraid to say no to sex, might be afraid to insist their male partner uses a condom, or can’t talk to their partners about abstinence, or whether or not their husband/boyfriend is faithful.
These gender inequalities and harmful norms were high on the agenda of problems the conference addressed. Unfortunately, the more than 20,000 scientists and advocates who attended didn’t make Western headlines. Today, most information about HIV/AIDS rarely makes the lead story in mainstream media. If it’s covered at all, it’s usually buried deep in the newspaper or a bleep of a sound bite on the late night news.
Non-governmental agencies reported to UNAIDS that nearly one-third of the countries with high incidences of HIV among women and children have no “non-discrimination laws or regulations in place that explicitly mention women.” The same report states that 29 percent of national governments have no laws or policies to prevent violence against women.
“In conflict situations,” the report reads, “rape and other forms of sexual coercion are often used as weapons of war.” In other words, women have no rights or autonomy to decide about their bodies in those countries.
With those definitions, HIV/AIDS is a human rights crisis we need to focus on solving. Beginning that process means we must address this also as a women’s and children’s issue, rather than falling back on the myth that HIV/AIDS is the “homosexual disease” we once believed it was.
This is Part Two in our series of HIV/AIDS editorials.
