HIV positive women violated in homes, communities

Lazarus Sauti

Rujeko Mwanza, 46, is an HIV positive woman.

She stays with her extended family of 10 members in Mabvuku, a high density suburb in Harare.

Like many women living with HIV in family and community settings in Zimbabwe, Mwanza experiences a wide range of Sexual Reproductive Health Rights (SRHR) violations.

Narrating her ordeal, she revealed that the violations range from misinformation as well as mistreatment or abuse during the process of seeking reproductive health services, to coerced and forced sterilisation and forced/coerced abortions.

“It is difficult to be diagnosed with HIV. Because of my status, my life is never the same again. Both in homes and communities, my rights, especially SRHR, are always violated,” Mwanza said.

She added that her SRHRs are violated in form of restricted mobility to access care, gender-based violence, abandonment; as well as limited decision-making on reproduction.

“Due to my status, I am given limited choices on when and how to bear children. This means that I am not allowed to decide on the number of children I want to raise. I am treated like a lesser human being,” she said.

In most parts of Zimbabwe, women who live with HIV like Mwanza continue to face difficulties in accessing medication, which is sometimes unavailable at marginalised community health centres due to underfunding.

Mutaleni Nadimi, from the Aids and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa, adds that for far too long and still today, discrimination against women allows for compromised access to education and sexual reproductive health information.

The Executive Director of the United Nations Programme on HIV and Aids, Michel Sidibe, blames inequality.

“We are seeing increased violence against young women,” he said. “Our call is to address the root cause – gender inequality.”

As the main advocate for accelerated, comprehensive and coordinated global action on the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the UNAids adds that ending the Aids epidemic depends on a social justice agenda that demands equality in education, employment, political representation as well as access to justice and health, free from violence.

Lynette Mudekunye, a public health professional, also encourages society to stop all violations against women living with HIV.

To break the cycle of violations against women living with HIV, she adds, we must make all our communities – rural, urban as well as peri-urban safe not only for women, but also for children of all ages.

“All leaders at every level of society from national to provincial to district to community and in every sector – be it government or traditional or religious – must clearly commit themselves to working with their constituents to making every community and nation a safe place for women and children,” said Madekunye.

She added that community dialogues involving massive campaign and sensitisation of communities especially men to increase their knowledge and appreciation of the SRHR of women living with HIV should also be conducted.

Madekunye also believes that there is need to promote psycho-social support to women experiencing SRHR violations through establishment of counselling services at the community level.

Significantly, the government should commit more resources to the provision of essential health services that are accessible and affordable to marginalised communities.

To achieve this, the government should recommit itself to facilitate the highest attainable standard of health including treatment, care and support for people living with HIV.

As the biggest stakeholder, the government should simply reserve 15 percent of the National Budget to the health sector as per the Abuja Declaration of 2001.

Frankly, ending the Aids epidemic by 2030 is very possible, but only by closing the gap between people with access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support services and those being left behind.