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NO BABIES FOR HIV+ WOMEN?

17/11/2013 07:10:00 BY MDUDUZI MAGAGULA

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MBABANE – Women living with the Human Immuno Virus (HIV) in Swaziland are allegedly coerced to get sterilised.

Their choice to the right to give birth to children is reported to be taken away by medical staff in various health institutions in the country.
Female sterilisation is a permanent method of contraception, involving a minor operation to cut or block a woman’s fallopian tubes.
This prevents the egg and sperm from meeting, thus preventing pregnancy.

It is a permanent procedure that is irreversible.
This information is contained in a recent study undertaken by the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) in conjunction with the United Nations Women, a UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. Sterilisation of HIV positive women in the country happens especially when they visit the hospital for their ante natal care.

This is where they are tested and if found to be positive with the virus, they are encouraged to sterilise by the health professionals.
According to the report, women living with HIV in Swaziland have had their right to be reproductive taken away albeit against their will.
Other countries affected are South Africa, Kenya, Namibia, Lesotho, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Zambia,

“Authorities continue to pay lip service to cases of women living with HIV being coercively and, in some cases, forcibly sterilised. In Namibia and Swaziland, cases of women living with HIV being subjected to coerced sterilisation have been documented and litigated,” reads the report in part.
It goes on to state that forced sterilisation of women living with HIV was a blatant violation of their fundamental rights.
“The AIDS epidemic has had a unique impact on women, which has been exacerbated by their role within society and their biological vulnerability to HIV infection. Generally, women are at a greater risk of heterosexual transmission of HIV.”

Swaziland is faced with a high HIV prevalence of 39.2 per cent among pregnant women and there are 200 000 people in a population of 1.1 million who live with the virus. There are approximately 17 000 children exposed to HIV infection at birth annually.
Over 100 000 people are now enrolled on Antiretroviral therapy (ART).

According to the report, biologically, women were twice as likely to become infected with HIV through unprotected heterosexual intercourse as men.
“Women are less likely to be able to negotiate condom use and are more likely to be subjected to non-consensual sex,” says the OSISA report.
“A huge number of women have been indirectly affected by the HIV and AIDS epidemic. Women’s childbearing role means that they have to contend with issues such as mother-to-child transmission of HIV. Incidents of violence against women (VAW) – regarded as any ‘act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life’ – continue to escalate.

According to the report, violence against women increases their vulnerability to HIV by limiting their ability to negotiate safer sex practices.
“Women may also be infected with HIV and other sexually transmitted infections through direct means of violence like rape,” reads part of the report.
Cervical cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer-related deaths among women in developing countries, including Swaziland.
Women who are HIV-infected were four to five times more likely to develop cervical cancer than women who are not HIV-infected. The report also states that recent studies continue to confirm that sex workers experienced higher rates of HIV infection than most other population groups.

“The Swaziland HIV Bio-Behavioural Surveillance Study and a Qualitative Study among Most At-Risk Populations, which was conducted by Population Service International in conjunction with Johns Hopkins University in the United States, showed that HIV prevalence among sex workers stood at 70.3 per cent.”
The report blames the above statistics on violence and discrimination against sex workers as well as police raids and incarceration. It also blames it on the lack of accessible and relevant information, evidence-based prevention tools and treatment services.

It says this compromises the ability of sex workers living with HIV to protect their health and receive adequate care, treatment, and support.
Transgender sex workers seeking transgender-specific health care and gay male sex workers seeking non-judgmental health care are similarly neglected in most of the region.

In cases where interventions targeted at sex workers do exist, these are often confined solely to female sex workers who have sex with male clients, with none targeting male or transgender sex workers.