Women’s chairladies’ meeting: breaking the silence around HIV
Chairladies discussed how silence, fear and myths about HIV stop people getting tested and treated.
The women’s chairladies focused on social attitudes to HIV/AIDS. One of the biggest obstacles in the fight against AIDS is the silence that surrounds it: people are ill and dying, yet it is not spoken about, and families often hide the fact that a relative had AIDS.
Fear and denial
Health facilitator Dorica Mchawa explained that many people still think HIV happens to other families, not theirs. People living with HIV fear rejection and discrimination, so they hide their illness. Although testing is available, many people who are HIV positive do not know their status, and can pass the virus on without realising it.
Myths
Myths about AIDS lead people to treat it as a scandal to be kept secret. People with AIDS are often wrongly judged, and some believe HIV can be caught just by being near someone who is positive. In some communities, people living with AIDS have been driven out or attacked.
Breaking this silence, and replacing myths with facts, is central to the work of every MASYAP support group.
