Literacy and HIV/AIDS: Tackling the Taboo in Africa

These days, Saturdays are devoted to funerals, says Dorothy Littler of the Swaziland National Commission for UNESCO. The HIV infection rate in southern Africa is the highest in the world. And despite the increasing availability of information on the HIV/AIDS pandemic, there is little sign that people are changing their behaviour.

February 2001, and UNESCO organized a workshop on HIV/AIDS in Mbabane, the capital of Swaziland. The workshop was attended by around 30 education, health care and communication professionals from Malawi, Swaziland and Zimbabwe. Each participant chose a topic based on research conducted with target groups in their home country and prepared educational materials for direct distribution to that group.

The subjects of HIV/AIDS and sex are still taboo in many parts of Africa. In Mbabane, the approach was informal and open, and challenged participants to overcome their own misgivings and misconceptions, and to learn from the experiences of their neighbours.

Two of the booklets produced during the workshop deal with the issue of 'wife inheritance' -a custom which exacerbates the spread of HIV/AIDS. In several African countries, including Kenya, Swaziland and Zimbabwe, when a man dies his wife automatically becomes the property of his brothers, along with his cattle, house and land. Perhaps the woman's husband died of AIDS and she is HIV positive, or perhaps her brother-in-law is already infected. Her husband's brother may already have a wife or wives. Each time a wife inheritance occurs, the number of people at risk of infection multiplies.

Two other booklets discuss so-called "sugar daddies", a term used to describe those men who buy sexual favours from young girls with tempting material goods such as make-up, mobile phones and clothes. This predatory behaviour, while not unique to Africa, means naïve and neglected teenagers are even more vulnerable to HIV/AIDS.

The workshop also discussed the impact of the 'Hyena' practice, a custom which symbolizes society's view of women as nothing more than sex objects. According to this tradition, a family pays a man to have sex with the virgin daughter. She is given a piece of white cloth to be shown to the women of the family as 'proof' that sexual intercourse took place. In a story related by Grace Kulupando-Seka from Malawi, the mothers of girls who contracted sexually transmitted diseases after this 'initiation' were forced to re-examine their age-old beliefs.

The most uplifting session of the workshop was testimony from a number of people with HIV. Gcebile Ndlovu, for example, who was diagnosed 14 years ago and is a picture of health today, doing all she can to "live and think positively". Other HIV positive people interviewed at the workshop told of how they now live fuller lives, with greater appreciation and awareness than before.

Workshop organizers also devoted a session to debunking common myths surrounding HIV/AIDS. One of these is that having sex with a virgin offers a guaranteed cure. "The worst nightmare for any parent is to imagine that your daughter could be the target of an HIV positive man on the hunt for a cure," says Matron Elizabeth Mndzebele, a UNFPA-trained health professional who has participated in numerous sessions on HIV/AIDS awareness. Another is that clean and well-dressed people do not have HIV/AIDS and cannot be infected.

Delegates also addressed the question of denial, exacerbated by euphemisms for AIDS and the reluctance of people to admit that they have been infected. In Kenya, the disease is called "slim", to reflect the severe weight loss suffered by those who have it. If someone dies of AIDS, it is common to hear relatives blaming the death on witchcraft or poison. Even the official cause of death is recorded as "a long illness", perhaps pneumonia or meningitis. Although a young mother may know she is HIV positive, she continues to breast feed her baby. The fear of being "found out" far outweighs the risk of exposing the infant to HIV/AIDS.

The fruits of this workshop, booklets and radio programmes, will be added to those produced at similar UNESCO workshops in other parts of the world. Some of the material is specifically aimed at those people most at risk from HIV/AIDS -the rural poor, in particular women and girls. It also addresses the problems faced by those already infected and reaches out to them with compassion and understanding. By encouraging both men and women to practice safe sex in a sensitive but direct way, the literature produced at workshops like this one will ultimately save lives. But it will take much more to wipe out AIDS; without the consolidated action of citizens, governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and United Nations agencies, the disease will continue its onslaught on countries and cultures.