Namibian HIV-positive women
24 June 2009 - 12:06pm | By Paul Anstiss
The government of Namibia is being sued for coercing HIV positive women into being sterilised. According to the International Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS (ICW), at least 40 HIV-positive women were made infertile against their will.
Many of the women believed that they were undergoing routine treatment for HIV when they gave birth. It was only later that they found out that they could no longer have children. Esther Sheehama was just 21 when doctors carried out the operation that would change her life. She now works for the ICW. She says:
“I came back after a month for antenatal care to come check if I am still ok and my baby is still fine, and then the nurse read my card and I asked for contraception and then the nurse said, 'For you there is no need now for contraceptives because you won't be able to have kids anymore.' And I was like, whoah, wow. Is that so?”
The ICW accuses the Namibian government of encouraging doctors to sterilise HIV-positive women to prevent the spread of the virus. There is a one in four risk that mothers can pass HIV to their children. But with better medical treatment that risk can be reduced to one in 50.
Denial
The government denies any programme to coerce the women into being sterilised. It has gone as far as to accuse them of lying. Esther Sheehama says this is ridiculous.
“I mean, for goodness sake. Why would I make up a story like that, that I'm sterilised, you know? It's just like making up a whole story that you're HIV positive. It doesn't make sense at all. So, obviously, the women are really scared. Because some of these women are hardly educated. They cannot read and write. And to them they look up to the law and the policy makers and they really fear for their rights and for their life.”
Maria Jose's Mock Journal Entry
I got really impressed with the newspaper today.Today, 24 of June, 2009 I have got real sad becuase of what women in my new home place ,Windhoek are passing through. Government are treating women like trash, they are not respecting them and not helping them at all. I feel scared, becuase women are getting their results and most of them are HIV positive. The worst part of all the part that actually makes me the most mad is that when women ask for help with the medications, and with their children and life, the governemnt of Namibia, Africa does not want to help, they act like its not important. I am just so angry to see when I get out of my new house women lined up at the government offices, and women asking for help in the hospitals and that the governemt takes this as a joke and even disrespects this women. This women who I actually had seen before Esther Shihama is really fighting for her life and the government does not even belive her. What this article mostly talks about is that women in Windhoek are being infertile without them even knowing just because they think that they have HIV, which for me is not fair becuase they have the right to speak up. According to the International Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS (ICW), at least 40 HIV-positive women were made infertile against their will. I am scared becuase they are not respecting the human rights.
INFORMATION BIBILOGRAPHY:
www.rnw.nl/.../lead/
www.rhrealitycheck.org/
WATCH THE PRESENTATION BELOW!! NOT ALL IN WINDHOEK IS BAD:)
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