|
|
 |
Preaching a positive sermon on HIV
Val Pauquet. 25 July 2004. The Sunday Independent. Republished courtesy of Independent Newspapers (Pty) Ltd.
|
When the ?“who?’s who?” of Africa?’s church leadership met in Nairobi last month to consider the role of the church in the HIV/AIDS pandemic, the event was characterised by a transparency on sexuality that only the enormous tragedy that is sweeping the continent could have induced. Widely practised customs such as polygamy, wife-inheritance and cross-generational sex came under scrutiny.
By the year 2010, half of Namibia?’s population may be wiped out and by 2025 the citizenry of Lesotho decimated. The HIV/AIDS prevalence in Botswana and Swaziland exceeds 39 percent. In South Africa at least 600 people a day die of HIV-related illnesses. Sub-Saharan Africa is home to 11 million orphans whose parents have died of HIV/AIDS.
These were some of the numbing statistics presented at ?“The Church is HIV-Positive?” Conference convened by the Nairobi-based All Africa Conference of Churches (AACC). Most mainstream churches belong to this influential body, which represents 39 African countries and a conservative estimate of 120 million Christians.
While it is accepted that poverty remains the incubator in which HIV/AIDS continues to be nurtured, Dr Nyansako Ni-Nku, the AACC President, said that the time had come to re-evaluate customs such as polygamy, which could provide a favourable breeding ground for it to flourish. Between 30 to 50 percent of women in some parts of Africa live in polygamous relationships. ?“Given that much of the African economy is agricultural, polygamy was encouraged to increase the family workforce. Now that the disease is shrinking that workforce, shouldn?’t our people now quit polygamy??” asked Ni-Nku.
He also questioned the social practice in many parts of the continent where, within three months of the death of a child, the mother is expected to become pregnant to ensure family continuity. Accordingly, HIV-positive mothers continue to give birth to infected children. In South Africa, more than 8000 babies are born every month to infected mothers.
Dr Pauline Muchina, a Kenyan doctor representing Population Services International, a US NGO, made an impassioned plea to the spiritual leaders to break the conspiracy of silence by daring to address the widely accepted practice of cross-generational sex. She appealed to leaders to set an example by stopping cross-generational sex and gender discrimination, which led to violence, rape and the vulnerability of African women and girls in the fight against HIV/AIDS. ?“Africa is on fire! Africa is drowning! Are you, our church leaders, going to stop the fire, save the people or shall we debate our traditions while HIV/AIDS continues to kill our people??” asked Muchina.
The disproportionate number of young women infected with the virus as opposed to males is startling. In Kenya, between the ages of 15 and 19, 23 percent of females are infected compared with four percent of males. In Ndola, Zambia, the HIV prevalence rate in females in the same age bracket is six times higher than for males of the same age. In South Africa, by age 20, 43 percent of females are infected compared with 9 percent of males.
Apart from the so-called ?“sugar-daddy syndrome?”, where young girls are repaid for sexual favours with gifts and money, other forms such as increased educational or employment opportunities for sex, Muchina said, are rife. Daring to cross the cultural divide where respect for one?’s elders forbids any reference, never mind in public, to the still-taboo subject of sex, the young doctor told of her own experiences, and those of her colleagues, of being propositioned by men of the cloth. The silence was audible as she related how her refusal to ?“socialise?” with a high-ranking member of the clergy prevented her from being ordained in his district.
In his welcome address, Reverend Mvuma Dandala, the General Secretary of the AACC, said it was a historical fact that the impulses of domination and control through the global colonial enterprise of power had always directly or indirectly included the introduction of disease as a weapon of occupation. Referring to the prevalence of HIV and TB in Africa, he said that the combination posed a grave danger for the continent?’s future and the potential for rapid depopulation.
"It is incomprehensible that very soon Africans will be grappling with the possibility of becoming minorities in their own countries. Even with the contemporary paradigm of democracy, it seems that the imminent extermination of the people of Africa may provide new impetus for legitimised colonial enterprise,?” he said. To back his point, he gave examples of Native Americans in the US, among whom measles was introduced, influenza among the people of Hawaii and Haiti, and the calamities that befell the indigenous populations of Australia and New Zealand.
?“The one most disturbing fact regarding HIV is that it can kill young people before they have had time to reproduce. Biologically speaking, any disease which kills before reproduction has the capacity to wipe out the species,?” he said. While Dandala did not make explicit claims based on conspiracy theories and HIV/AIDS, conversation during recesses was abuzz with the topic. To an extent this eclipsed the message of hope from the World Health Organisation?’s Reverend Canon Ted Karpf, who expounded the virtues of the ?“Three by Five?” strategy.
Translated, this means that by the end of 2005, three million HIV/AIDS sufferers will have access to a fixed dose combination (FDC) treatment. Karpf describes such three-drug FDCs as state-of-the-art, inexpensive, safe and a major breakthrough for AIDS treatment. He undertook to equip each of the church leaders present with information and the protocols for obtaining the treatment.
Scepticism regarding the West nevertheless abounded when the huge discrepancies in the cost of treatment came up for discussion. Scathing comments were made about the proliferation of conferences on HIV/AIDS that produce very little effect on the real victims. ?“HIV/AIDS is one area that exposes human hypocrisy and the injustice that prevails in international relations. We in Africa, where the damage is greatest, unfortunately remain the least provided for,?” said Ni-Nku.
The statistics he quoted did little to change the perception of Africa?’s neglect. An HIV/AIDS patient in the US, he claimed, is allocated $4 000 (about R24 5000) for care; in Europe $3 000, while in Cameroon, the allocation is $3 per patient. ?“Yet we talk of the world being a global village where we are all citizens. We are, in fact, a mere appendage to the global world. I think we are dealing with a gross injustice that must be roundly condemned and urgently righted,?” he said.
The full report can be accessed on the righthand side of this page |
| Was this article helpful to you? |
 ?100%???? ?0%
|
|
Back
|
|
|
|
