Women and HIV

Stephen Lewis, UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, delivered a speech at the University of Pennsylvania’s Summit on Global Issues in Women’s Health on April 26, 2005. He took as his theme Women and HIV. His speech is well worth reading, because it conveys some of the seriousness of the issue, together with his anger and despair at the inability of the world to grapple with it. A short extract:

Just a few weeks ago, I was in Zambia, visiting a district well outside of Lusaka. We were taken to a rural village to see an "income generating project" run by a group of Women Living With AIDS. They were gathered under a large banner proclaiming their identity, some fifteen or twenty women, all living with the virus, all looking after orphans. They were standing proudly beside the income generating project … a bountiful cabbage patch. After they had spoken volubly and eloquently about their needs and the needs of their children (as always, hunger led the litany), I asked about the cabbages. I assumed it supplemented their diet? Yes, they chorused. And you sell the surplus at market? An energetic nodding of heads. And I take it you make a profit? Yes again. What do you do with the profit? And this time there was an almost quizzical response as if to say what kind of ridiculous question is that … surely you knew the answer before you asked: "We buy coffins of course; we never have enough coffins".

It’s at moments like that when I feel the world has gone mad. That’s no existential spasm on my part. I simply don’t know how otherwise to characterize what we’re doing to half of humankind.

Do yourself a favour. Read the speech and think about what you can do to help make a difference. Then do it.