I've been researching, as my new book suggested, to find out how AIDS is affecting women in Botswana. The problems are horrendous in terms of numbers of people with HIV/AIDS, in terms of children orphaned by HIV/AIDS and in terms of women and children with HIV/AIDS. Yet to me the saddest thing of all is that the nation is suffering such a terrible pandemic because of the attitude of its men towards women.
HIV positive men believe that having sex with a virgin will cure them. Having this belief, they believe it is all right to deceive a young woman about their HIV status, to have unprotected sex with her, to leave her infected, and any child she has conceived also infected, very possibly orphaned at an early age. When I say "leave", I mean "die and leave". They have of course not helped, still less cured themselves, but they have blighted the life of another human being - maybe more than one - and condemned their own child or children to poverty and suffering.
If I cry out to God to avert this tragic waste of lives - and I do - it just leaves the human race still vulnerable to self-destructive behaviours. Any nation that regards its women as being of no account compared to men and their well-being is creating its own suffering. Without strong, healthy, respected women, children will not be brought up to be healthy, happy and stable, and the future is in pawn to irrational beliefs and fears.
Lord, my prayer is that you will teach men to cherish and honour women, and women to cherish and honour men, each recognising the high value that the other has as a vital part of humankind.
I pray that new infections of HIV can be stopped, not just in Botswana, but across the world, and that this disease can be wiped out by both prevention and cure.
Relevant web sites are:
http://www.avert.org/aidsbotswana.htm
http://hivinsite.ucsf.edu/global?page=cr09-bc-00
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