Pride and shame

PRIDE and shame sat side by side as South Africa marked World Aids Day on Thursday. Pride at the 5 400 volunteers taking part in the largest HIV vaccine clinical trial yet in South Africa. Pride because the days of beetroot, garlic and HIV/Aids denialism are firmly behind us. Pride because South Africa has the biggest treatment programme in the world. But shame casts a long shadow. Stigma and discrimination are huge barriers to efforts to prevent and treat HIV/Aids. The consequences of stigma can be worse than the illness itself “and may mean abandonment by a partner or family, social exclusion, job and property loss, school expulsion, denial of medical services, lack of care and support, and violence”, in the words of the National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union.

After all this time of living with HIV/Aids — 35 years to be exact — we need to pay more attention to the stigma, shame and humiliation. These destructive emotions are never far from other social ills, and it is no surprise that they have such a malevolent grasp on efforts to prevent HIV/Aids.

In the early years of HIV/Aids, it was known as a disease of gay men, sex workers, intravenous drug users and people with unrestrained sexual appetites. This view is warped — anyone can be infected by HIV and all of us have been affected by it — but it has helped to fuel an attitude that the infected have brought it on themselves and deserve to be shunned. It also makes them see themselves as inadequate and undeserving of help. And so stigma robs us of our human rights.

Blaming, shaming and living in fear will only make the disease stronger, with worse and broader consequences. We will never be able to deal decisively with HIV/Aids unless we embrace and accept everyone, regardless of HIV status.