Women, AIDS, Africa & Lipstick

by Dr. Mark Bean

In 1987 when I first visited Amesbury's sister village of Esabalu, near Lake Victoria, in Kenya, I met with a young doctor named Dr. Nalumenya. I asked him if he had seen any cases of this new disease AIDS that I had read about. "Yes," he said "In fact, at my hospital we have had six cases in the last year." It was such a rarity at the time. What a difference at my last visit in June! The same hospital is full with victims of the AIDS epidemic. Funerals are held daily in the village. My first morning in Esabulu was spent visiting the graves of family members of people I knew from our sister village work.

There are so many of these new graves!

What is striking about the effects of AIDS in an African village is that most of the burden of the disease falls on the backs of the women and girls. The husband always dies first. When he becomes ill, the family's resources are spent on hospitalization and on expensive antibiotics to treat opportunistic infections, which are the initial presentation of the disease. From being sick, he loses his job and is unable to do farm work. There is no income and the children are forced to quit school for lack of school fees. The family lacks food in the home.

The funeral, when it comes, costs money too. Traditionally, women and children in Kenya are not allowed to inherit property. After the husband's death, any property or land goes to the man's brothers. The widow is left with nothing. She takes her children and moves home to her parents. Hunger increases. Within a year or two or three, the widow develops symptoms of AIDS. She sickens and dies. The children are now orphans and survive in a difficult situation - living with elderly relatives, lacking sufficient food, uneducated, and with an uncertain future. What will their life be like?

A girl from a home like this one may be married off early to an older man in order to relieve the grandparents of another hungry mouth to feed. Or even worse, she may turn to prostitution as the only option for earning her daily food. Early sexual contact with older men is what spreads the AIDS virus. In the nearby city of Kisumu, Kenya the HIV infection rate for girls aged 16-24 is now over 30%. In Western Kenya, one in every three young women will die of the disease. In Southern Africa it is more like half! The black plague in 14th century Europe only killed 25% and this plague of AIDS is happening at a higher rate even now.

Is there any hope? Yes, there is. In June, I accompanied 15 women and youths from Esabalu on a visit to the Kenya Aids Intervention and Prevention Project Group (KAIPPG). KAIPPG is a voluntary association of women who have organized to help each other face the devastation of AIDS. Together these women's groups unite to confront family breakup, malnutrition and loss of resources which are the effects of HIV/AIDS. By testing, identifying and caring for those who are HIV positive they break down the stigma of talking about the disease. When the stigma is broken, then the KAIPPG women help young people to speak out about AIDS. The AIDS epidemic thrives because people are afraid to confront the shame of a sexually transmitted disease. Through KAIPPG young women and girls learn that they are at risk and must talk about HIV with their partners and take precautions to prevent AIDS infection.

On August 30th, 32 women and young people from KAIPPG will visit our sister village of Esabalu to present dramas about HIV/AIDS and to begin organizing the women of Esabalu into a strong force to fight the epidemic. A drum concert in Newburyport last February raised $2000 to send to KAIPPG to help in this effort.

Small private contributions and self-help organizations like KAIPPG can only do so much. The World Health Organization estimates that it will cost ten billion dollars a year to control the AIDS epidemic and reverse it. That is about what American and European women spend every year on lipstick. So far, even this "lip service" is beyond the abilities of our leaders in Washington. "War on Drugs?" - no problem. "War on Terror?" - no problem. "War on AIDS in Africa?" - no can do.

Fundamentally, AIDS worldwide is a disease whose worst impact is on women and children. How can the women and children of America help? Can lipstick power overcome the indifference and unconcern of world leaders? Think about it!