NO SEX PLEASE, WE’RE SWAZI

Can any of us be surprised that Swaziland has the highest rate of HIV infection in the world when people are not prepared to discuss the subject properly?

Hot on the heels of Swazi MP Timothy Myeni who called for people who are HIV-positive to be branded on the buttocks to advertise the fact, comes news that one of Swaziland’s prominent HIV AIDS educators was stopped part way into a talk to school children about AIDS because he mentioned sex.

Sanele Mdluli, who writes a widely respected column for the Times Sunday about living with HIV (I have written about him before), was invited by the Good Shepherd High School, Siteki, to talk to pupils.

The school gave him 30 minutes for his talk but he had barely got five minutes into it before the school principal stopped him and had a teacher march him off the school premises.

Mdluli told the Times of Swaziland, the kingdom’s only independent daily newspaper, today (12 June 2009), ‘As the teacher led me out of the school premises, I asked her what the problem was and that was when she told me that I was teaching the pupils sex, something that was unacceptable in a catholic school.’

He said all that he was doing was present an honest, truthful motivational talk to the pupils and therefore felt embarrassed by the principal’s actions.

Sources said pupils were shocked at the principal’s action because they wanted to hear what Mdluli had to say.

Mdluli had previously made similar presentations to other schools in Siteki, including Nazarene, where they never had a problem with his talk.

School principal Susan Matsebula told the Times, ‘In less than five minutes the boy had said a lot of things about sex and we were all taken by surprise hence I felt I should stop him.’

She said as a Catholic institution they were told to teach abstinence and not what Mdluli was telling the pupils.

Meanwhile, Walter Bennett, a favourite ‘rent a quote’ for the Swazi media has supported MP Myeni who called on HIV-positive people to be branded. He said people should not make fun of the MP’s ideas.

I have written about Bennett before and his habit of talking about things he knows nothing about. I am particularly concerned about his racism against Asians.

Bennett has form when it comes to HIV. In 2002, when he was a Swazi senator Bennett said the Swazi Government should stop providing medical support to HIV AIDS patients. He told a rally in Manzini that it was unfair to continue taking care of people with HIV AIDS because others were more deserving.

‘The government is wasting a lot of money, yet these people got this disease out of their evil habits and out of choice,’ he said.

He went on to urge the government to close down places of entertainment. ‘Swaziland can do without these places and this could lower the HIV AIDS prevalence in Swaziland,’ he said.

SWAZI CULTURE ENCOURAGES HIV AIDS

The international outcry after news that Swazi MP Timothy Myeni has called for people who are HIV positive to be branded on the buttocks to advertise the fact, reminds me of just how much work needs to be done in Swaziland to stem the tide of AIDS.

A study of Swazi cultural practices, funded by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) http://www.unfpa.org/public/ and released earlier this year found that they made it difficult to stem the tide of HIV AIDS in Swaziland where the infection rate is as much as 45 percent among some age groups, the highest in the world.

The study found, ‘In Swazi culture, decision making has traditionally been a male prerogative. Family planning decisions, therefore, lie with the man.

‘Women report that they have been subjected to continuous child birth by their husbands or in-laws against their will.’

Another cultural factor is a preference (which is sometimes made into a demand by in-laws) for a woman to bear a boy child. Unwanted pregnancies result as the birth of a girl child is immediately followed by an effort to have a male heir who by traditional law is of the only sex that can lead a family into its next generation.

So strong are these beliefs, coupled with an antipathy toward condom use, that AIDS prevention efforts directed at women haven’t made much headway, according to current statistics. HIV prevalence peaks at age 25-29 amongst Swazi women, 40 percent of whom are HIV-positive in that age group, and at age 30-35 amongst men, 45 percent of whom are HIV-positive in that age group.

In the study, Swazi men strongly defended the practice of kungena, whereby a widow becomes the wife of the deceased man’s brother; a practice that health groups say spreads HIV. Swazi men also defended polygamy as a cultural necessity.

But men also lamented cultural practices they said could stop the spread of HIV, like kuhlawula, whereby men or boys who impregnate unmarried women are fined five cows by their community elders, are no longer enforced.

Several Swazi customs were once in place to ensure that young people stayed chaste until marriages. At the time, marriages were usually arranged between families as forms of alliances. Until the traditional ceremony was completed, young people were not allowed to have sex.

One taboo was the people did not engage in sex outside their age groups.

Boys were subject to ridicule by their contemporaries if they were known to sleep with older women.

Now, Sugar Daddies and Sugar Mamas are common. It is not even sexual attraction that draws the youngest of the partners to such relationships, but the lure of money.

In previous Swazi generations, girls’ sexual debuts were delayed through such customs as umcwasho, when all the nations’ girls of certain ages were forbidden to engage in sex for designated periods.

This was examined last year by a report undertaken by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). he study covered much the same ground as this year’s health ministry research.

On the subject of Swazi customs that have been forgotten, but which could if they had continued positively assisted anti-AIDS efforts, the report noted, ‘Today these social practices have degenerated as a lot of negative sexual practices are tolerated by society.’

SWAZI ‘OBSERVER’ AND HIV BRANDING

I am saddened to read that the Swazi Observer seems to be supporting the call from Swaziland MP Timothy Myeni to brand people who are HIV positive on the buttocks to advertise the fact.

The Observer, the newspaper in effect owned by King Mswati III, has reported favourable the support readers of a UK newspaper have given to the idea.

Readers of the website of the Daily Mail, a newspaper published in London, have given ‘overwhelming support’ to the branding idea, the Observer reports.

It goes on to reproduce many of the comments left by readers on the website. This one gives a flavour of what is being said, ‘43% HIV infection rate! Those who are infected with HIV are patently not behaving responsibly. If I was the Swazi AIDS campaigner I’d be much more outraged about that.’

None of this surprises me. The Mail is probably the most politically right-wing newspaper in the UK and is no lover of Africans (at least not the black Africans). For many years it was an apologist for the apartheid regime in South Africa and it continues to give racist coverage on issues such as immigration into the UK.

I wouldn’t be the least surprised to see its readers supporting a call to end all non-white immigration into the UK and for all blacks presently in the country to be sent ‘home’.

The Mail is no lover of Swazi culture either. Like all news organisations in the world, it is not at all interested in what is going on in Swaziland, but when it does take any notice it is mostly critical.

In one report it said, ‘The kingdom of Swaziland is one of just two monarchies surviving in corrupt, cruel and collapsing southern Africa.’

Another report talks about the ‘slave status’ of Swazi women.

King Mswati, the Observer owner, will not be pleased to learn that the Mail was critical of his 40/40 celebrations last year that marked the king’s 40^th birthday and the 40^th anniversary of Swaziland’s independence.

The Mail criticised Paul Boateng, the British Ambassador to South Africa (the UK doesn’t have an ambassador in Swaziland, that’s how valuable it sees the kingdom), for attending the celebrations. It called him a hypocrite for saying he believed in democracy while supporting the king’s ‘sham’ democracy.

It reported that campaigners said the estimated 10 million US dollars spent on the celebrations ‘would have been better spent tackling chronic unemployment, malnutrition which affects 70 percent of the 1.1m population and the HIV epidemic which killed 10,000 people last year’.

The Observer needs to be careful about who its chooses as bedfellows.

SWAZILAND A GLOBAL HIV AIDS JOKE

Swaziland is once again an international laughing stock.

But this time it is not King Mswati III and his bare-breasted virgins, his teenage brides, his armoured cars and personal jet that is at the centre of the problem.

The cause of the trouble is Swazi MP Timothy Myeni who in a speech at a workshop said that all Swazis who are HIV-positive should have the fact branded on their buttocks.

‘Before having sex with anyone, people will then check the buttocks of their partners before proceeding with their mission,’ he said.

He also called for compulsory HIV testing for everyone in Swaziland, which has the highest rate of HIV infection in the world (42 percent).

Suddenly, Myeni became an international joke, with newspapers and blogsites the whole world over reporting about him.

Myeni has since apologised for the bit about branding, but he still wants compulsory testing.

To my mind the Sowetan newspaper summed up Myeni pretty well, calling him an ‘uncivilised idiot’ and a ‘foolish and arrogant man’.

Inevitably, bloggers have been calling Myeni a ‘pain in the butt’.

As well as being a Swaziland MP, Myeni is leader of a gospel group called the Ncandweni Christ Ambassadors. There have been calls to boycott the group as a protest against Myeni and to kick him out of parliament.

The Times of Swaziland, the kingdom’s only independent daily newspaper, has called on readers to debate Myeni ideas while the Swazi Government has refused to comment because, according to a spokesperson, ‘they had not seen or heard the statement’ (which begs the question where has the government been while the rest of the world jeers at Swaziland?).

Myeni is a joke, but a dangerous one. Swaziland has been virtually rudderless when it comes to dealing with HIV and AIDS. At first King Mswati refused to even acknowledge there was a problem in Swaziland and once he was forced to (kicking and screaming) it was too late. Polygamy and the Swazi culture’s denigration of women generally have made it almost impossible to make headway in treating HIV AIDS as a public health issue.

The fact that Myeni’s comments were made at an HIV workshop, aimed at sensitizing MPs to the issue, just about sums it up.

To read about the reality of HIV AIDS in Swaziland, click here.