The continued increase in HIV/AIDS infections across Africa and its disproportionate impact on women have a lot to do with unequal power relations in society. Until inequality is recognised and addressed, it is likely that AIDS will continue to persist, writes ANGELA KYUNGU.

Today, AIDS is acknowledged as a global crisis and in Africa it is the biggest health problem for healthcare workers, policy makers and ordinary citizens. Managing and coping with the reality of AIDS is a never-ending struggle.

It is evident that “the medical and social policy writing, political rhetoric, media representations and public debates around AIDS ignores, sidelines and misrepresents women” who are more vulnerable to the disease than men. “The discourse also repeats the common erasure of women, treating them as differentiated ‘people’ as if their gender were invisible and unimportant. The AIDS discourse also reproduces culture definitions of women as incarnations of sexual danger, biological power and victim-hood” (Squire, 1993). These representations of women in the AIDS discourse serve to construct the experience of AIDS for women.

These factors are reflected in many African countries where the discrimination of women begins at birth. As they grow up, they are socialised into caring roles of cooking, taking care of the home, looking after the siblings, among other household duties. In education, the boy child is schooled whereas the girls get married and do not inherit property from their parents. If the girl child went to school, she would later have to drop out in order to go through the passage of rites, which, in many African countries, involves female circumcision.

There is a lack of recognition for women – as individual beings – as they are more often categorised as ‘prostitutes’ or ‘vehicles of transmission’. They are placed in a precarious position as their role is defined in terms of their potential to infect another person rather than in terms of their own needs. Women are referred to as vectors transmitting HIV to men, or vessels for its transmission to the next generation. Their recognition as women therefore does not exist. This continues to undermine their efforts to create any meaningful changes geared towards their empowerment in life (Squire, 1993).

Currently women constitute 58% of those infected in Sub-Saharan Africa. In almost every country in the continent, the prevalence rates are higher among women than men. The transmission of AIDS among young women is more likely to occur between the ages of 15-44. This is the case as most women are not screened for the HIV antibodies when they attend maternal child health care, as there are no facilities available and no trained personnel to carry out these tests especially in rural areas. It is also the case that 50% of pregnant mothers go to Traditional Birth Attendants (TBAs’) most of whom are not tested for AIDS. With unhygienic conditions, for example, unsterilised equipment and no gloves used, it is inevitable that the number of infected women continues to escalate.

It is also the case that women’s professional lives are more likely than men to include working in services such as childcare, social work, teaching and health care. Many women also perform important health educational roles, both in the public and community services. Due to this factor women need to be aware, and put into practice what they learn about the AIDS transmission as a measure of protecting themselves from the infection. They need access to comprehensive services covering contraceptive and reproductive advice; including information on ‘safe sex’ as well as caring for AIDS infected children and partners (Honigsbaum, 1991).

Another major factor that can be used to explain the high prevalence rate in the number of females infected is that of female circumcision. This is referred to as Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). This is a common traditional cultural practice that has in recent times come to be associated with the rapid spread of AIDS in Africa. It includes “traditional doctors” who use unsterilised equipment to carry out their ‘activities’ therefore making females more prone to AIDS. It is estimated that over 100 million women in Africa have undergone the practice with many ethnic groups, from the East to the West Coast of Africa, being victims. Other activities carried out are those such as ritual cleansing and healing which involves bodily cuttings or puncturing as well as tribal beauty marks and tattooing (Gatei and Onyunga, 1999).

Debates around the origin of AIDS have sparked considerable interests and controversy since the beginning of the epidemic. This has not helped solve the problem; instead it has raised more questions in relation to its origin and rapid spread. In 1993, the World Health Organisation estimated that over 10 million people were infected with AIDS, and that a third of this population were women. Ten years later, more than 40 million people were said to have AIDS (and these were the reported cases only).

It is also reported that more than half of Africa’s population live under the poverty line. With traditional practices still being carried out, gender discrimination still prevailing, lack of proper treatment for most of the infected, among other important factors such as education, the problem still continues to prevail. AIDS prevention therefore is not simply a matter of “infusing large amounts of international aid, educational outreach or even condom subsidization. Until the “global, national, and community antecedents of chronic inequality are recognised and meaningfully addressed” (Craddock, et al: 2004) AIDS will continue to persist across much of Africa and the number of infected persons will continue to rise.

* Angela Kyungu is a gender studies student at Northampton University in the UK but originally hails from Kenya.

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Sources:
Craddock, S. et al (2004) HIV and AIDS in Africa – Beyond Epidemiology, Oxford: Blackwell.
Gatei, M. and Onyunga, P. (1999) Partner – Kenya AIDS NGOs Consortium, Vol. 5, No. 2 p. 2-3.
Honingsbaum, N. (1991) HIV and AIDS a cause for concern, London: Saxon Printing.
Squire, C. (1993) Women and AIDS Psychological Perspectives, London: SAGE Publications.