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Men's position in the fight against Aids; is it embracing yearly campaign themes or taking action?
Ever since the advent of HIV/Aids over years ago, we have focused almost exclusively on the impact of the disease on lives of women. All too often the human story behind Africa's disease nightmare is hidden behind a weight of statistics whose enormity deems simply incomprehensible, dulling those not affected by the disaster into inaction if not indifference.
According to the UNAIDS statistics, over 58 per cent more African women than men are living with HIV. A great deal of the social fall out of this ruining epidemic affects women directly as mothers, individual and the standard bearers in social, and by extension the myriad orphans they are bond to leave he hind.
We stand accused of overlooking the cool to me of HIV/Aids. It is not in significant, by all accounts: By the end of 1999, we are told 10 million African men were infected as compared with 7.5 million in the rest of the world. In 2002 the UNAIDS has recorded 3.1 million deaths in the world 2.4 million people in sub Sahara Africa. 24.4 million people are living AIDS; with 3.5 million new ones. Young men are at greater risk, comprising about 25 per cent of those living with HIV.
It may have been a case of becoming aware of men as the strong, silent type and this is exactly where the problem lies. The evidence shows us here that social and cultural are literally killing them in droves, alongside the women and children in their lives.
While biological factors contribute to the behavioral differences between women and men, in every social, the latter's' conduct is determined at least in part by expectations as to how men should act - which are often shared by women as much as men.
There has never been any doubt that the key to social change is getting in touch with that part of men that is humane, caring and sensitive enough to change the world. It is the high time that women should start seeing men as part of the solution to the social problems and not as the problem. Also that belief about what it is to be a woman or a man can successfully be challenged and turned on the women's heads.
People should have to view men's vulnerability to HIV/Aids within the context of prevailing concepts of manhood and womanhood. And encourage our daughters to be sweet and submissive and admonish our sons to be bold and aggressive. But the same characteristics that are most admired in men; physical strength, daring and outgoing personalities, virile and sexually adventurous outlook, translate into daredevil attitudes and behavior that are equal to suicide in this day and age.
The "live and let live" campaign is built in the following pillars: that men's health is important but receives inadequate attention; men's behavior puts them at risk of HIV; their behavior puts women at risk unprotected sex endangers both men and women, and men need to give greater consideration to Aids as it affects the family.
Theories of masculinity mean that boys and men are reluctant to seek help when they should for fear that they will be seen as " sissies". Consequently, they tend to have short life expectancy than women and waste unnecessary time in seeking health care for easily prevented or cured diseases.
According to the world Aids body document, young men die more often then women, mainly from traffic accidents and violence- both related to ‘man hood' ideas that encourage them to take risks or use violence and encourage sexual and drug related risk-taking.
Young men's behaviors may not be typical of everyone's conduct, but there is no doubt that all or any of these elements have fuelled the explosion of HIV/Aids on the African continent. To this case, add the increase in rape and other forms of sexual assault.
And the sharp rise in prostitution, especially among younger women who have had to drop out of school and are forced into commercial sex due to poverty and famine, to make a living of sort and the common myths that sex with a virgin will cure a man of HIV/Aids!
Men, as we have seen above are in a prime position to change the community. Given the fact that they are often better placed in terms of power relations, have the opportunity to change the dynamics of the epidemic infection in Africa. It begins with the way we socialize our sons, ultimately, only real men will be able to make the difference between death and life in our continent Africa.
About the Author
freelance journalist, district political party secretary and african cultural advocate.