Love versus stigma

HDN Key Correspondent Team, September 2006

Namibia: "I need love," says Emma Tjirimuje, an HIV positive mother living in Katutura, a vast, poor, black suburb in Windhoek, Namibia.

Emma is struggling to live positively with HIV, working as a volunteer counsellor for Lironga Eparu, the organisation of HIV positive people in Namibia. Emma's biggest wish is to have a ‘love centre’ for HIV positive people.

The majority of inhabitants in Katutura live under the poverty line, just part of the 75 per cent of the population who live in poverty. It is also the most densely populated part of the capital. This legacy of the colonial political system of apartheid is a sprawling township made up of a mixture of modern standard bungalows and box shaped cabins that give way to tiny tin shacks of impoverished rural immigrants living on the outskirts of the former 'blacks only' township.

"People need to know that HIV infected people need love. I wish I could open a love centre for them… the HIV virus is nothing when you have your family's support, but when you can not even walk to the cuca shop (neighborhood shop) without people whispering loudly behind you and others calling out, your soul is slowly dying, and the rest of you will follow.

It is painful, really, I wish I could find some money to build my own house and get away from the rest of my family," Emma says.

Emma says she is managing with the disease, but she is failing to manage her family's reactions to her condition. She is a widow whose husband died of HIV/AIDS and now she has no means of survival except to live with her mother, siblings, her children, and their cousins under one roof.

"I know I would be happy if I could find a way in which I could leave my family to go and live in a house far away from Windhoek with my three children, away from the stigma, the hurtful comments. Imagine, if I sit in the toilet for more than ten minutes when I have a running stomach, someone will come and knock, even a child and they shout - 'Hey, Mrs HIV positive! What are you still doing in there?' I can no longer kiss my nieces, their mothers, my sisters, complain bitterly. I cannot use the same cups as everyone else, I can only share with my children. My youngest child understands, but nobody else really does…"

Many positive people around the country echo Emma's lament. Doctors and nurses testify that often they have to deal with the psychological rather than the physical effects of the HIV virus.

"People are dying because they have no one to discuss their situation with them… No one in whom to confide. They pine away, eventually becoming so depressed that they decide to stop taking their medicines and then HIV/AIDS quickly sets in," said Tamia Kudzai, a doctor working at a state hospital. "It is clear that those who have support from their parents or other relatives fare much better than the ones who cannot tell anyone of their condition."

The United Nations Development Assistance Framework for Namibia (UNDAF) has identified stigma as one of their priority points in the fight against HIV/AIDS from 2006 to 2010. UNAIDS Namibia Country Coordinator, Salvatore Niyonzima, says one of the main requirements of UNDAF is to strengthen the response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

According to a December 2005 UNDAF report, significant proportions of Namibians, particularly rural women and isolated groups, do not have complete and accurate information on HIV/AIDS prevention or treatment strategies.

"Many Namibians do not want to get tested for HIV due to stigma and discrimination. The roll out of ARV treatment and PMTCT+ [prevention of mother to child transmission] should begin to mitigate the stigma, but access is still limited and understanding of treatment, low.

Strong interventions must be implemented at all levels to counter the vicious cycle of stigma, discrimination, fear, lack of human rights of women and alcohol abuse," says the report.

Chilombo Mwondela-Katukula
HDN Key Correspondent, Namibia
Email: correspondents@hdnet.org
Web: www.healthdev.org/kc
HDN 2006