非洲妇女仍面临因艾滋病的耻辱和歧视

African Women Still Face HIV Stigma¹ 非洲妇女仍面临因艾滋病的耻辱和歧视

New research shows that more than 30 years into the HIV/AIDS epidemic², African women living with the HIV still face much stigma and discrimination. The study says it’s affecting efforts to prevent mother-to-child transmission of the AIDS virus.

The community-led research was commissioned by the World Health Organization and done in Kenya, Namibia and Nigeria. The study was conducted by the International Community of Women Living with HIV – or ICW -- and the Global Network of People Living with HIV.

Margaret Happy is an ICW advocacy officer based in Kampala, Uganda. She said stigma and discrimination in health care settings “is hampering³ efforts to scale-up early infant diagnosis⁴ of HIV.”

“The stigma is still existing, one, because of information. When I talk about information it is a two way. Information for the service providers, but also information for us as the community of people living with HIV and in this case I’m going to focus on the woman living with HIV,” she said.

Happy said despite current information about HIV prevention efforts, many health providers and employees in Africa fail to acknowledge it. For example, the use of antiretroviral drugs to prevent infection.

“They already know that treatment is prevention. Although most of them have heard that if someone is on HIV is on treatment – is on ART treatment – he or she is less infectious – they still think that provided someone has been tested HIV positive the person can still infect them. So, due to lack of information, due to limited information by health service providers, they still have that stigma,” said Happy.

But she also said there’s an attitude problem among many health workers.

“The negative attitude – the negative perception by health service providers – also fuels stigma.”

One Nigerian woman said in the report that instead of talking to her, nurses shouted and laughed at her because of her HIV status.

Happy said pregnant women are often surrounded by relatives when they go to health care facilities or are giving birth. The relatives may not know the woman is HIV positive until health workers test the child for HIV.

“It causes deferential⁵ treatment or it even causes violence, separation, divorce. And now the situation is worse by also the legal environment. The legal environment, which is not enabling. The legal environment which criminalizes a disease, which criminalizes HIV, for instance, in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and other countries,” she said.

Happy said that HIV positive women often impose stigma upon themselves because of their economic dependence⁶ on men, either as daughters, partners or spouses⁷. Fear of separation, divorce or violence can prevent women from disclosing their HIV status.

The report is entitled Early Infant Diagnosis: Understanding the Perceptions, Values and Preferences of Women Living with HIV in Kenya, Namibia and Nigeria. It was released at the 8th International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention in Vancouver, Canada.

The World Health Organization is considering new recommendations based on the study. One would be to test infants born to women living with HIV at birth and then again four to six weeks later. Supporters said this would reduce a woman’s anxiety about her baby’s health. Another recommendation would be to teach the women how to care for and feed the infant early on.

The report also called for women living with HIV “to be provided with information about testing options to give them time to make an informed choice about when to test. The ICW said the choice must be respected and the human rights of the mother protected. 

UNICEF, the U.N. Children’s Fund, reported about 900 children are newly infected with HIV every day, nearly all of them in sub-Saharan Africa. It said 57 percent of pregnant women living with HIV received antiretrovirals to prevent the virus from being transmitted to their babies. But UNICEF also said only 35 percent of infants born to HIV positive mothers in low and middle income countries were tested for the virus within the first two months of life.

1 stigma   

n.耻辱，污名；(花的)柱头

参考例句：

• Being an unmarried mother used to carry a social stigma.做未婚母亲在社会上曾是不光彩的事。
• The stigma of losing weighed heavily on the team.失败的耻辱让整个队伍压力沉重。

2 epidemic   

n.流行病；盛行；adj.流行性的，流传极广的

参考例句：

• That kind of epidemic disease has long been stamped out.那种传染病早已绝迹。
• The authorities tried to localise the epidemic.当局试图把流行病限制在局部范围。

3 hampering   

妨碍，束缚，限制( hamper的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• So fraud on cows and development aid is seriously hampering growth. 因此在牛问题上和发展补助上的诈骗严重阻碍了发展。
• Short-termism, carbon-trading, disputing the science-are hampering the implementation of direct economically-led objectives. 短效主义，出售二氧化碳，进行科学辩论，这些都不利于实现以经济为主导的直接目标。

4 diagnosis   

n.诊断，诊断结果，调查分析，判断

参考例句：

• His symptoms gave no obvious pointer to a possible diagnosis.他的症状无法作出明确的诊断。
• The engineer made a complete diagnosis of the bridge's collapse.工程师对桥的倒塌做一次彻底的调查分析。

5 deferential   

adj. 敬意的，恭敬的

参考例句：

• They like five-star hotels and deferential treatment.他们喜欢五星级的宾馆和毕恭毕敬的接待。
• I am deferential and respectful in the presence of artists.我一向恭敬、尊重艺术家。

6 dependence   

n.依靠，依赖；信任，信赖；隶属

参考例句：

• Doctors keep trying to break her dependence of the drug.医生们尽力使她戒除毒瘾。
• He was freed from financial dependence on his parents.他在经济上摆脱了对父母的依赖。

7 spouses   

n.配偶，夫或妻( spouse的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Jobs are available for spouses on campus and in the community. 校园里和社区里有配偶可做的工作。 来自辞典例句
• An astonishing number of spouses-most particularly in the upper-income brackets-have no close notion of their husbands'paychecks. 相当大一部分妇女——特别在高收入阶层——并不很了解他们丈夫的薪金。 来自辞典例句