AIDS in Africa: Part 1

The other night there was a panel discussion on the HIV/AIDS situation in Africa. I will write what I learned there in two posts. Tonight’s will highlight the situation, and the next will look at what is being done (or not done) about it. The speakers focused on women because women are much more vulnerable to AIDS than men, for biological, cultural and economic reasons. I was not aware that women are more likely to get HIV. Men are naturally less likely to contract HIV, and if they are circumcised, they are an additional 20% less likely to contract it. In some African cultures, women are still not allowed to look men in the eye, and they sit on the floor while men sit on chairs. This systemic hierarchy would inhibit women from demanding protection during sex. The inequality also contributes to the amount of violence and sexual violence against women. It also means that women receive less education, as they are often removed from school at an earlier age to become caregivers. Less education gives them less options to provide for themselves and their families, which limits their resources when AIDS does enter their lives.

One of the speakers was film writer and director Thom Fitzgerald, who made The Hanging Garden and Three Needles. Three Needles was filmed in Africa, among the Pondo Tribe. Thom told us about some of the unsafe practices that contribute to the spread of AIDS. For example, in this region of South Africa, 54% of school children are raped. Another example involves good intentions, but unfortunate results. Young men aged 15-18 undergo a ritual of manhood. They each build a grass hut for themselves. Then they are circumcised and spend the next several weeks living in their huts being taught things they will need to know to be a man. The disturbing part of this ritual is that the machete used for the circumcisions is not cleaned or sterilized at all between boys. Sometimes as many as 100 boys are circumcised at once.

Some regions of Africa are so ravaged by AIDS that they are forced to make some very difficult choices. For example, there are drugs available to prevent the transmission of HIV/AIDS from parents to children, but the Pondo people prefer that children of those infected with HIV/AIDS contract AIDS. The reasoning behind this was that the region is overwhelmed with orphans as it is, so it would be easier if the children on AIDS patients died of AIDS too. Many African nations have severe shortages of medical professionals. Their nurses and doctors are working in Western countries such as Canada, the US, and Britain. Forty million people are infected with AIDS. As parents die, millions of grandmothers are left to take care of their grandchildren. Some grandmothers look after more than a dozen children. What is the West doing about this horrific situation?