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Have You Heard Me Today? - World AIDS Day 2004
Catherine Jenkin. HIVAN Media Office.
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World AIDS Day 2004 focuses upon that portion of our society who are largely marginalised, oppressed, ignored and thereby rendered voiceless - women and girls.
In the context of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, it is women and children who suffer the most. Yet women are the bearers and nurturers of our planet?’s future and it is our children who will bring it about.
It is women who are most vulnerable to HIV infection - as a result of domestic violence, polygamy, some risky cultural practices and poverty. Women?’s ?“place?” in society has always been a troubled one, often resulting in women not being offered educational or employment opportunities and dependent on men to survive. Women do not have a voice in the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
Children too suffer as a result of HIV/AIDS. The astonishing and ever-increasing number of children made vulnerable by the effects of the pandemic and child-headed households serves as testament to this tragedy and the damage HIV/AIDS is doing to families the world over. In their struggle to survive, these children are robbed of a voice in the pandemic.
Studies show that young women and girls are two and a half times more likely to be infected with HIV than their male counterparts. A recent UNAIDS report reveals that women are now make up nearly half of the reported 37.2 million adults living with HIV worldwide. In Sub-Saharan Africa, almost sixty percent of adults living with HIV are women ?– a total of 13.3 million mothers, caregivers, home-makers and leaders.[Source: Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, UNAIDS - http://www.unaids.org].
It is with these frightening statistics foremost in our minds that the 2004 World AIDS Day campaign aims to give women and children a voice with which to be heard, and with the objective of reducing their vulnerability to HIV/AIDS.
HIVAN, throughout its existence but in particular this year, has been concerned to provide this platform through its various printed, interpersonal and electronic media and networking initiatives.
The latest edition HIVAN?’s community newsletter Sondela focuses on children and on restoring the family, in whatever form a family may take, in order to overcome the effects of HIV/AIDS.
HIVAN?’s recent Youth Forum provided children and youth with space to tell their stories and share their lives. A recent HIVAN publication, Babiza?’s Story tells of a child?’s struggle to come to terms with his mother?’s HIV-positive status, and focuses on how his mother, even when ill, helps others who are also infected.
It is within our communities, our families and our workplaces, and through true recognition of gender equality that the HIV/AIDS pandemic can be beaten. It is by giving those too weak to stand up a helping hand and providing a voice to those oppressed into silence that we can secure a greater future for our world, and our people. It is by listening to the mothers of our children that we will learn how to help. It is by helping our children that we help ourselves. It is by giving a voice with which to speak and a platform from which to be heard, that we can truly break the silence of those most affected by HIV/AIDS.
Have you heard me today? |
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