Fear, denial, stigma and discrimination continue to accompany the HIV epidemic. This week on Siyayinqoba Beat It! we explore how stigma and prejudice undermine efforts to combat the disease. In our first insert we visit a clinic which was closed temporarily after the nurses were threatened by a man unhappy that his girlfriend had tested positive for HIV there. We then meet a woman who was raped as a young girl and has faced discrimination since because she is a lesbian. We learn that it is not just people living with HIV and AIDS who are affected by stigma – prejudice also endangers those not infected as well as the people who try and care for those who are.
In Flagstaff many people in the community depend on the treatment and care provided by the Qasa Clinic. Yet the clinic was forced to close its doors briefly after a local man threatened the staff when his girlfriend, and the mother of his children, tested HIV positive at the facility. His violent outburst culminated in repeated threats to shoot the staff. Zukile Madikizela of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) explains that HIV is often associated with the poor so wealthy or well educated people who are well respected may feel that their reputations would be diminished by any association with the disease.
The TAC runs door-to-door education programmes and Outreach projects in hard-to-reach rural communities hoping that more education will reduce the stigma of HIV. Already in Flagstaff the community came together with representatives of the ANC and the Department of Health to discuss the incident and how to respond to it. The staff are still scared but determined to carry on with their work which is so important to the community.
In the second insert we find out how discrimination and abuse of people because of their gender and sexuality can exacerbate the epidemic. In Umgungundlovu our CJ speaks to a woman who, as a 13 year old girl in 1997, was assaulted by her 26 year old cousin. She recalls vividly the pain she experienced after the attack and the reaction of her family who told her it was a family matter and “nobody else needed to know.” It was only years later that the women’s ailing mother told her that the cousin was HIV positive and that as a result she had been infected due to the assault in 1997.
After her mother died, she and her sisters took up residence with her uncle who would not tolerate her being a lesbian. Without her knowledge he undertook lobola dealings with his friend. In order to prevent her sisters from being thrown out of their uncle’s house she complied and went to her uncle’s friend’s house when she was told to do so. However she told him she did not want to have sex with him – so he beat and raped her before returning her to her uncle. According to Londi Xulu of the Gay and Lesbian Network, abuse of people because of their sexuality is not uncommon. Many attacks are intended to “teach a lesson” and few attacks are reported because of the survivor’s shame and the perceived indifference of the police.
The impact of stigma and prejudice on the HIV epidemic is varied and widespread – from threats to medical staff which disrupt the treatment of sick patients, to sexual abuse based on an intolerance of women, gays and lesbians creating new infections. The solution of the TAC and the Gay and Lesbian Network is to expand education while making counselling available to anyone at risk of stigma and prejudice. For the woman in Umgungundlovu life has been especially tough – she has two children, the second born to a man who also raped her because as she states “he wanted to prove that I was not a man, that I was a woman.” However, both children are HIV negative and their mother now just wishes for them the best education possible and to know that “their mother taught them how to stand on their own two feet.”