Census avoids HIV/AIDS

South Africa's national census which starts next week, will not include questions on HIV/AIDS, as the topic was "too sensitive", Motale Phirwa, National Census Manager of Statistic South Africa, told IRIN on Tuesday. Results from the census will assist decision makers when planning and developing policies for the future.

"As you know people have been killed for revealing their HIV status, so it was felt that the whole area should be avoided...we're trying to build up trust with people so they are forthcoming with information, asking questions about HIV/AIDS could prevent our survey staff from doing their jobs...it's still too sensitive an issue", Phirwa said. He admitted that "it would have been a good opportunity to get more information on HIV/AIDS" but added that Statistics South Africa was not responsible for compiling the questions, the questions emerged from workshops within SADC and at provincial and local government levels.

Nozuko Majola, Project Officer for the AIDS Foundation, told IRIN that she had hoped the Census would ask questions that would help gauge the impact of the disease. "We work with AIDS orphans everyday and we don't even know how many there are in the country...the census could have helped us get a sense of how many children were affected by HIV/AIDS", she added. Majola felt that it was not necessary to ask for people to disclose their HIV status, but rather ask questions on how HIV/AIDS had changed their lives.

Statistics South Africa has said that any personal information given during the census will not be divulged to any person or organisation and the 85,000 representatives have been sworn to secrecy. Despite this assurance, Dr Sue Goldstein, Research Manager for Soul City- a multi-media educational health project- felt that the stigma associated with HIV/AIDS made it difficult to ask questions on the pandemic. "I'm not sure that the census is the right forum for this...and I don't think many people will be forthcoming on the issue," she said.