Catherine Sasman
10 October 2008
Windhoek — It is often pointless to 'talk about sex' to abate the spread of HIV/AIDS without considering the context of cultures and traditions, say activists.
The book 'We Must Choose Life' launched this year by Sister Namibia, is a compilation of stories from ordinary women that chronicles different reasons why women and girls become infected with HIV.
One of the reasons is the culture of silence surrounding sex and sexuality within the Namibian society. Another reason is the shocking violence women and children are often subjected to and perhaps more compellingly, it tells of harmful cultural sexual practices that place women and girls, more particularly, in danger of contracting HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.
The HIV/AIDS pandemic, says Robin Baumgarten of Sister Namibia, forces people of all cultures to speak more openly about such harmful practices.
"If HIV/AIDS weren't here, people would probably still not have been talking about sex and harmful traditional practices," says Baumgarten.
The organisation is conducting a nationwide sexual rights campaign to develop critical thinking and analysis around sexual and cultural practices that not only go against the grain of the Namibian Constitution, under which women and children have extensive rights, but that in fact fuels the spread of HIV.
"The campaign aims to empower women to know that they can make sexual choices. For many, this is such an eye opener when they start realising that traditional sexual practices are not biological, but that they are social constructions of gender roles."
For many women, she says after having been around the country for the campaign, sexual pleasure is still a foreign concept.
"Sex is a very private space, and traditional sexual practices are deeply engrained," says Baumgarten.
And this is one of the reasons, says Liz Frank, Director of Sister Namibia, that behaviour change - which is a requisite element to stop the spread of HIV - is not a quick fix in stemming the pandemic.
Instead, she suggests, embedded cultural practices - the harmful ones - need to be deconstructed and addressed.
"And then the 'Adam's rib and evil Eve' notion still holds sway, even among the political youth," says Frank. "Such beliefs compound the belief that women should not be 'too empowered', meaning that they should not have control over their own bodies."
But control over one's body is one of the requisite elements in the fight against HIV and AIDS.
According to the 2006 sentinel survey, the highest prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the country is in Katima Mulilo (39.4 percent), followed by Oshakati (27 percent), Onandjokwe (23.7 percent) and Karasburg (22.7 percent). The lowest prevalence rate was found in Opuwo and Gobabis (7.9 percent).
But what are the traditional practices that might compromise women and children's health?
One reportedly prevalent practice in the Caprivi Region is culturally condoned incest called muleleka, said Frank, after the organisation compiled case studies on sexual practices around the country.
"Girls are reported to wake up the next morning with their underwear on the floor," says Frank.
This practice, says Roelien Boer, HIV/AIDS trainer with the Namibian Association for Community Support (NACSO), is not so straight forward, for a lack of a better word.
"I have heard stories where women, girls and boys wake up with their underwear off, knowing that they have had a sexual encounter, but then they were sleeping alone in a room with the door locked and the windows closed.
My personal view is that this could possibly be a wet dream or witchcraft; or perhaps they were given something to make them sleep right through the encounter."
But she agrees that this practice can have far-reaching consequences, not only for the physical health of victim, but indeed the emotional wellbeing.
"Children often grow up with inappropriate sexual education," she adds.
"There are, for example, words in all local languages describing the vagina and penis, but these words are often considered taboo."
Another harmful practice, adds Velia Kurz, national HIV coordinator with NASCO, is the sucking of blood from a severed vein to relieve a headache, or putting vaginal fluid on an open wound.
Yet another, she says, is dry sex, where women use herbs or powders to dry out the vagina.
"Women say they do it because their husbands like it. What it often means for women is tearing, open wounds and contact with blood."
In most cultures, widow cleansing and 'wife inheritance' further put women at risk of HIV infection.
Among many Hereros there is reportedly a practice where a wife may send out her husband to have extra-marital sex to "refresh" him, or to go and pick up new "tricks".
Also among the Hereros and Owambos, there is still the practice of uncles sleeping with their nieces to "train" them in matters of sex.
"Another belief I have come across among the Owambos, is that sex during the day is not done. The belief is that your cattle will die. Many women say that they have never seen their husbands naked. This means that sexually transmitted diseases, for example, cannot be spotted," says Boer.
Among the San, there is a widespread belief that San men cannot spread HIV, but that it is, in fact, the woman who "brings it" to the men after Herero men - who often use San women as sexual objects - have infected them.
Among coloured women, reportedly, there is a practice where women put semen on their faces to remove skin blemishes.
Another worrying practice, says Boer, is an apparent growing sexual tourism, reported by wardens at national parks, who claim that white men, particularly, want sex with San and Ovahimba women.
Perhaps this, she says, is one reason why there is prostitution among Ovahimbas "from Kombat to Opuwo".
"What is a Namibian woman's chance to survive the AIDS pandemic? " asks Sister Namibia. "There is a need to debate the meanings of these practices and the effects these have on women and girls in terms of their dignity, humanity and equality."
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