HIV
& AIDS in Africa
HIV & AIDS Research & Publications by Dr. Debie LeBeau
HIV
& AIDS in Africa
HIV & AIDS Research & Publications by Dr. Debie LeBeau
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Traditional Medicine in Africa Gender Training and Research Programme (GTRP/ UNAM)  |
Barbara Rijks
Daniel Motinga, Director
This report, based on the aforementioned research, notes that there has been a significant response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Namibia, with NGOs, CBOs, government and international donor agencies working in various fields to stem the tide of new HIV infections and mitigate the impact of AIDS on the population. Widespread responses at the national and community level have begun to impact personal responses by the mobile and associated populations in terms of lowering their HIV vulnerability. There are indications that the tide has been turned in the fight against HIV and AIDS with the decline of HIV infection rates nationwide, greater access to voluntary counseling and testing, ARVs, and widespread condom use - especially among those most vulnerable to HIV. However, there are still cultural and social norms that negatively impact mobile and associated populations’ ability to lower their HIV vulnerability. Click here to go to the IPPR's site for a research report based on this publication
Structural
Conditions for the Progression of the HIV/AIDS
Click here to
go to the IPPR's site for research reports based on this publication
HIV/AIDS KAPs in Adult Education
HIV and AIDS Risk-taking Behavior in Northern Namibia
Poverty and HIV Infection "The Influence of Poverty on the Epidemiology of HIV/AIDS and its Subsequent Reinforcement of Poverty among Economically Marginalised People in Northern Namibia" by Debie LeBeau and Pempelani Mufune, In: Debt Relief Initiatives and Poverty Alleviation, Mulinge, Munyae and Pempelani Mufune (eds).
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This
research was designed to determine key areas of HIV vulnerability and risk-taking
versus areas for HIV help-seeking behavior through the cognitive perceptions
of migrants, mobile and associated populations using qualitative data collection
methods such as a mapping exercise. Informants were asked to map HIV vulnerability
factors such as bars and truck stops, as well as HIV preventive factors
such as available health care services, location and availability of condoms,
and sources of sexual health information. This research was funded by the
International
Organization of Migration (IOM),Partnership on HIV/AIDS and Mobile Populations
in Southern Africa (PHAMSA) and conducted through the Institute
for Public Policy Research (IPPR).
Turning
Corridors of Mobility into Corridors of Hope:
This
was an anthropological exchange research program between the Department
of Sociology (UNAM), the Centre for African Studies (CNRS/EHESS), the Centre
for Research on Public Health Issues (University of Paris 13) and the Department
of Community Health, University of Witswatersrand (WITS); with research
funded by the Centre National de la Recherche
Scientifique, Paris. The findings from this research indicate
that migration and gender inequality are significant contributing factors
to the spread of HIV in southern Africa.
The
first part of this publication examines women's and men's perception of
women's current socio-economic status within contemporary Namibian society,
their knowledge about contemporary social issues relating to women, and
how they think women's lives have changed since Independence. The findings
indicate that gender inequality is a social structural factor that places
women at greater risk of HIV infection due to their inability to lower
risk-taking behavior. Important factors for this discussion include women's
social status vis-à-vis men, customary practices, women's access
to and control over their own economics, women's control over their own
sexuality, women's exposure to gender based violence such as domestic violence
and rape, and government initiatives aimed at greater gender equality.
The
second part of this publication examines aspects of life for migrants.
Although the focus of the research is placing migration within the rubrics
of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, there are various social and economic structural
factors that tend to put migrants in a 'high risk milieu' which place them
at greater risk of HIV infection and, given their fragmented social and
sexual networks with rural and urban social and familial links, leads them
to be a significant contributing factor to the progressive spread of the
disease. The most prevalent reason for migrants' and their sexual partners'
vulnerability to HIV is that migrants do not have consistent condoms use,
but have a fragmented sexual network. Migrants have social relationships
in various locations which allow them to also maintain multiple sexual
relationships with little or no social repercussions, unlike the more settled
populations who are more likely to face social pressure from their partners,
friends, family members and even communities to maintain a limited sexual
network.
This
research was conducted on behalf of the Namibian
College of Open Learning (NAMCOL) and the Centre for External
Studies (CES) at the University of Namibia. 
This
anthropological research focused on health and risk-taking behavior in
the ethnically Owambo areas of northern Namibia using both qualitative
and quantitative research methods. The research was conducted by the Department
of Sociology, University of Namibia and funded by Service
de Cooperation et d'Action Culturelle de l'Ambassade de France.
The resulting publication, Taking Risk, Taking
Responsibility: An Anthropological Assessment of Health Care and Risk Behaviour
in Northern Namibia by Debie LeBeau, Tom Fox, Heike Becker and Pempelani
Mufune, indicates that there are specific social and cultural
constraints to more widespread use of condoms as well as social external
determinants such as poverty, migrancy, alcohol abuse and a degree of fatalism
within the population, all of which influence the spread of HIV. The document
demonstrates that socio-cultural sexual beliefs and behaviors such as the
marked social inequality between men and women, sexual violence within
relationships, and perceptions of manhood as an excuse for promiscuity
influence sexual risk-taking.
This
chapter reviews the relationship between poverty and the epidemiology of
HIV in northern Namibia. The chapter argues that although HIV is a physiological
affliction, significant socio-economic factors, inherent in the structure
of society, influence the unabated spread of HIV in many areas of southern
Africa, and specifically in Namibia. These factors include: 1) what can
best be termed 'diseases of poverty' which lower the body's immuno-response
system; 2) a 'paralysis in poverty' which causes daily subsistence activities
to take precedence over lowering HIV risk-taking behavior; and 3) women's
lower socio-economic status vis-à-vis men which places them at particular
risk of contracting HIV.
Once
AIDS has affected economically marginalized families, the disease reinforces
the family's economic vulnerability by eliminating economically active
members of the family and precipitating direct and indirect costs to the
family in the form of food, health care and funeral expenses for the sick
and dying; thus creating a deepening economic crisis for affected families.
AIDS adds to women's already over-burdened domestic responsibilities in
caring for AIDS patients and children orphaned by AIDS. In addition, AIDS
has already and will continue to alter the very social fabric of affected
families by creating child-headed households when both parents have died
from AIDS and the extended family structure can no longer absorb all children
orphaned by AIDS.