Fighting the stigma of AIDS

Accused of not doing enough, African leaders were urged this week to take up the challenge of combating the scourge of HIV/AIDS across the continent. The analogy repeatedly used at this year’s Africa Development Forum on leadership and AIDS, organised by the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), was one of war. “This is a battle for our continent’s survival,” ECA Executive Secretary K.Y Amoako said on Sunday at the opening of the five-day forum. Africa is facing 2.4 million AIDS-related deaths a year and a total of 12.1 million orphans. The overall impact is putting whole economies at risk. “This is the time to be decisive, this is our test,” Amoako stressed. He appealed to African leaders to prove themselves capable of meeting the challenge. As devastating as the impact of AIDS has been on households, the crisis is yet to translate into radical behavioural change both in terms of people practicing safe-sex, and their attitudes to those living with the virus. Clement Mufuzi of the Network of Zambian People with HIV or AIDS told IRIN he was “more than angry”. His frustration is with the political authorities, for the inadequacy of their response to an epidemic the world has been aware of for 20 years, and a society that continues to stigmatise HIV-positive people. “Governments must be very honest and should have their eyes opened. They sit in air-conditioned offices and don’t see what happens on the ground, the reality that people are silently dying in their homes. They must see the reality, not only the statistics, and then they’ll be compelled to act,” Mufuzi said. He tested HIV-positive in 1981. But going public with his status was not an easy decision: “Immediately I go public I’m compromised. I can’t smoke, I can’t drink. I can’t have a girlfriend. But my neighbour, who doesn’t know he’s HIV-positive, can do all of these things. But we also deserve rights.” Mufuzi said that it is not him alone but his entire family that is stigmatised because he is HIV-positive. “The moment anything negative happens it is associated with AIDS: If my kids do badly in class it’s because of AIDS. My kids psychologically do not live a free life.” Stigma, he added, was due to the shocking ignorance that exists in societies over the disease. “But wait until it hits their families,” he said of those who discriminate against people living with HIV/AIDS. Lamine Bah of the Santayalla Support Society in the Gambia told IRIN that his family has also faced hostility from the community. “You don’t have to sympathise with us, but you have to empathise. You have to accept us wholeheartedly and know we are not a threat to society,” he said. Bah, a private teacher to poor children in his neighbourhood , added that “above all”, HIV-positive people need employment opportunities. But instead, all too often the attitude from employers was “this man is dying so we don’t need him”. According to the Executive Director of UNAIDS Peter Piot, stigma and discrimination are part of the “unfinished agenda” that needs to be addressed in tackling HIV/AIDS. “The greater involvement of people living with HIV/AIDS is fundamental in breaking stigma concerning HIV/AIDS,” a UNAIDS briefing paper noted. “Leadership is important to tackle stigma on various levels. These include creating space and legal protection for those living with HIV/AIDS; leading through symbolic gestures that confront stigma.” At the moment, only a handful of African countries are working on legislation to outlaw discrimination on the basis of AIDS status. However, Mufuzi said he and other members of HIV/AIDS support networks “are turning our anger into action”. As a person living with HIV/AIDS, “you feel alone and as if it’s better not to talk about your problems. But if I keep quiet I’m expendable. When you go public you’re visible and can do advocacy, and that’s the change we want. We as people living with AIDS say we can benefit society and make a difference.”