HIV/AIDS exacerbated by Zimbabwe’s patriarchal society

The Mzansi Afrika blog (South Africa) has a disturbing post prompted by news that a 13 month old baby was raped earlier today. In the post titled When will this stop?, Bronwyn writes that this “comes a few days after news broke about a primary school in Thokoza on the eastern outskirts of Johannesburg where no less than 52 little girls have been raped in the past few years”. She goes on to comment:

One of the sad parts about this whole horrifying situation, is that as a society we seem to have become totally desensitised to rape - you read these stories and it’s just like, oh well another rape, you read about it everyday. The story about the 52 girls did somehow shock me, but the other reports, well, it’s just more of the same. That is the horrible and honest truth. It seems that we are no longer outraged by the consistant onslaught of rape and violence against our women and girls.

One of the people responding to Bronwyn’s post poses this question: “This kind of thing makes me sick to my stomach. I still need to understand the cause of this though… is it an education problem, or a perversity problem?”

It’s not just South Africa. Exactly that same question was running through my mind while I was researching the post I planned to write for World AIDS Day last week [link to earlier post]. I came accross a statement on the Woman and AIDS Support Network (WASN) which spoke about the incidents of rape in schools as if they were commonplace in Zimbabwe:

The Women and AIDS Support Network (WASN), deplores actions of continued child sexual abuse in schools, which are escalating at an unprecedented level and placing girls at higher risk of contracting HIV/AIDS.

We note with grave concern, the intensification of such incidents, despite the work that has been done by various organisations in conscientising society at large and the authorities on the seriousness of child sexual abuse and the vulnerability of girls.

This sort of abuse is always shocking, but more so when considered alongside the fact that “Teachers in Zimbabwe have urged the government to provide free AIDS treatment after a survey revealed the profession was struggling with the highest infection rates in the country.” In fact, a 2002 report on the sector previously found that “teachers are at a substantial risk of HIV/Aids infection, and around one third of teachers are likely to be infected with the virus” [my emphasis].

That statement by WASN is dated November 2002, but almost 3 years to the day later I put up a post on this site prompted by a report in The Zimbabwean:

“In Zimbabwe, 40 000 girls are raped annually before they turn 17,” Makoni said. “Every day, the Girl Child Network receives at least one report of a girl below 16 who’s been raped, with some victims as young as six months old. 350 rape cases have been reported to us so far this year.” [link to original post]

Rape is about power and the abuse of power. Power seems to be a major reason why women and girls are the most affected by HIV/AIDS in Zimbabwe. The WASN says that the underlying reason for this is because

Zimbabwe is highly patriarchal and this forms the foundation upon which our culture is framed and this has created a system of structured inequality – gender power relations, access and control of resources and decision making.

This is something that those in the west really need to get their heads around. On World AIDS Day the United States president, George Bush, said “in order to deal with HIV/AIDS we must confront it honestly” and then he went on to say that AIDS would be “overcome by compassion, honesty, and decisive action”. And how would this be done?: “We’re working with our partners to expand prevention efforts that emphasize abstinence, being faithful in marriage, and using condoms correctly.”

That just sounds a little bit shortsighted and naive to me. I don’t think that approach is going to make the teeniest dent in some of the reasons why women and young girls are the most at risk from becoming infected- read the full list on the WASN website here:

• Patriarchy creates unequal gender power relations. Men have greater control than women over when and how sex takes place. As men usually determine the circumstances of sexual intercourse they often refuse to protect themselves and their partners. The use of condoms is limited in stable relationships. Women are not empowered to negotiate for safe sex. The condom use promotions concomitant with the advent of HIV and AIDS gave the impression that condom use was for those who wanted to engage in extra marital sex or for use with commercial sex workers. The result was that the condom use was associated with promiscuity and that stigmatized condom use in marriages. Women cannot demand that their husbands use condom.
• This asymmetrical power balance is also reflected in how male pleasure is given priority over female pleasure. In effort to please men, some women may use herbs or other agents to dry and tighten the vagina because it is believed that men prefer dry sex. The substances used may erode the vaginal mucous membranes and cause inflammation, which may facilitate HIV transmission.
• Still on the issue of power balance, the stereotypes of masculinity and what it means to be a real men encourage male dominance over women, leading to risk taking through promiscuous sex.
• Then there is the whole issue of cultural sexism that blames the spread of STIs on women (chirwere chevakadzi) whereas a man suffering from the same infection brags about the infection in terms of it representing a Bull’s Scar of battle (bhuru rino wonekwa nemavanga aro)
• A culture of silence surrounds the issue of sexual abuse, makes it difficult to identify and address. Sexual abuse may be sanctioned by some cultural traditions eg. Muzukuru mukadzi, kutamba chiramu.
• Some cultural practices predispose women and girls to HIV infection. For example, virginity testing by the father in-law on the first night of the couple’s marriage, is a high risk cultural practice in some parts of Matebeleland. Wife cleansing and inheritance are equally high risk cultural practices.
• Deepening poverty and limited opportunities for education and limited access to employment and capital leave women with few options. They are often obliged to exchange sex for money. (sugar daddies, commercial sex.)
• The importance of bearing children leads to unsafe sex. Culturally children do not belong to women so decision on child bearing lies with the men.
• Married women find it difficult to refuse sex from their husbands because of the lobola issue.
• Women are sexually active at a young age. Gender power differential is compounded by age differences. Women typically have sex with older men. Men that increasingly seek younger women because they believe these will be free from infection are a menace. The immaturity of the genital system of young girls puts them at high risk of infection.

These sort of attitudes and cultural traditions require a massive adjustment in thinking, and dare I say it that that massive adjustment needs to mainly be made by the men in our society. Zimbabwean women, I assume, will continue to do what they’re told, and if men insist on safe sex then safe sex it will be (please don’t think for a second I support blind obediance, I’m just making a point).

But last week’s post by Adrian, titled How could anyone not know about HIV/AIDS? suggests that we have a very very long way to go when it comes to shifting male attitudes:

There were five of us sat around the fire. All men. I was considerably younger than the others though. I’m in my thirties whereas each of the others were at least fifty. The conversation started with one of the men saying ‘ I don’t know what is happening to all our young people in this country. They are all dying.’ I was stunned by his words. I knew all about the conspiracy of silence that surrounds HIV/AIDS but this did not seem like a man in denial. The other men nodded in agreement. None of them knew what was happening to their youngsters either. I wanted to scream at them ‘They are dying of AIDS for God’s sake!!!’ but I said nothing.

Technorati Tags: South Africa, rape, violence, women, girls, sexual abuse, HIV/AIDS, Zimbabwe, Patriarchy

This entry was posted by Hope on Monday, December 5th, 2005 at 3:15 pm. You can follow any comments on this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.